Vaasa

Sister cities

• Harstad Municipality
• Zhenjiang
• Olonets
• Helsingør
• Schwerin
• Kiel
• Pärnu City
• Umeå Municipality
• Malmö Municipality
• Bellingham
• Šumperk
• Morogoro

History

Over the years, Vaasa has changed its name several times. At first it was called or after the village where it was founded in 1606, but just a few years later the name was changed to Vasa to honor the royal Swedish lineage. The name Mustasaari (Finnish) or Korsholm (Swedish) remains in use as the designation for the surrounding rural municipality, which has encircled the city since 1973. Following the Russian Revolution in 1917, the City Council decided on 19 March 1917 to revert back to the earlier name Vaasa. The name was confirmed by the Senate on 18 October 1917. The history of Korsholm and also of Vaasa begins in the 14th century, when seafarers from the coastal region in central Sweden disembarked at the present Old Vaasa, and the wasteland owners from Southwest Finland came to guard their land. In the middle of the century, Saint Mary's Church was built, and in the 1370s the building of the fortress at Korsholm, Crysseborgh, was undertaken, and served as an administrative centre of the Vasa County. King Charles IX of Sweden founded the town of Mustasaari (Mussor) on 2 October 1606, around the oldest harbour and trade point around the Korsholm church approximately to the southeast from the present city. In 1611, the town was chartered and renamed after the Royal House of Vasa. Thanks to the sea connections, ship building and trade, especially tar trade, Vaasa flourished in the 17th century and most of the inhabitants earned their living from it. In 1683, the three-subject or Trivial school moved from Nykarleby to Vaasa, and four years later a new schoolhouse was built in Vaasa. The first library in Finland was founded in Vaasa in 1794. In 1793, Vaasa had 2,178 inhabitants, and in the year of the catastrophic town fire of 1852 the number had risen to…

Most-observed species

• Great Tit

  Parus major Linnaeus, 1758 · Aves
  1,296
• Siberian Flying Squirrel

  Pteromys volans (Linnaeus, 1758) · Mammalia
  972
• Common Chaffinch

  Fringilla coelebs Linnaeus, 1758 · Aves
  866
• Eurasian Blue Tit

  Cyanistes caeruleus (Linnaeus, 1758) · Aves
  835
• Willow Warbler

  Phylloscopus trochilus (Linnaeus, 1758) · Aves
  800
• European Greenfinch

  Chloris chloris (Linnaeus, 1758) · Aves
  776
• Reed Bunting

  Emberiza schoeniclus (Linnaeus, 1758) · Aves
  691
• Eurasian Bullfinch

  Pyrrhula pyrrhula (Linnaeus, 1758) · Aves
  644