The great Oulu fire of 1652 was a conflagration that destroyed the majority of the young city of

Oulu Oulu ( , ; sv, Uleåborg ) is a city, municipality and a seaside resort of about 210,000 inhabitants in the region of North Ostrobothnia, Finland. It is the most populous city in northern Finland and the fifth most populous in the country after: ...

Finland Finland ( fi, Suomi ; sv, Finland ), officially the Republic of Finland (; ), is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It shares land borders with Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of B ...

on 2 October 1652. Almost all of the houses of the town's

bourgeoisie The bourgeoisie ( , ) is a social class, equivalent to the middle or upper middle class. They are distinguished from, and traditionally contrasted with, the proletariat by their affluence, and their great cultural and financial capital. They ...

, the provision warehouses in which the Crown's grain and money was stored and the

drawbridge A drawbridge or draw-bridge is a type of moveable bridge typically at the entrance to a castle or tower surrounded by a moat. In some forms of English, including American English, the word ''drawbridge'' commonly refers to all types of moveable ...

Oulu Castle Oulu Castle ( sv, Uleåborgs slott,The original 16th-century Swedish name contains the Swedish word for castle twice as both "borg" and "slott" mean castle. This is likely because the probable name "Uleåborg" (Oulu Castle) of the short-lived 14th ...

were destroyed. The city was rebuilt after the fire according to the city plan drawn up by surveyor Claes Claesson in 1651. The new city plan doubled the surface area of the town. At the same time, the streets and

city block A city block, residential block, urban block, or simply block is a central element of urban planning and urban design. A city block is the smallest group of buildings that is surrounded by streets, not counting any type of thoroughfare within t ...

s were laid out in a more regular fashion. The shoreline of the

Oulu River Oulujoki is a river in Oulu province, Finland. Its name in Finnish means literally "Oulu River" ( sv, Ule älv), originally in old Northern Ostrobothnian dialect literally "Flood River". Its origin is Oulujärvi and its watershed area covers a ...

was turned into a marketplace that had its own measuring house, a weigh house, and, of course, a packhouse.

References

Fire 1652 1652 disasters 17th-century fires Great Oulu Fire of 1652 17th century in Finland 1652 in Finland {{Finland-stub

See also

References