The Port of Turku ( fi, Turun satama, sv, Åbo hamn) is a

port A port is a maritime facility comprising one or more wharves or loading areas, where ships load and discharge cargo and passengers. Although usually situated on a sea coast or estuary, ports can also be found far inland, such as H ...

located in the south-west of

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 Bot ...

, where the mainland meets the beginning of the Turku archipelago. Sited within Finland's sixth largest city, the port principally handles traffic between

Turku Turku ( ; ; sv, Åbo, ) is a city and former capital on the southwest coast of Finland at the mouth of the Aura River, in the region of Finland Proper (''Varsinais-Suomi'') and the former Turku and Pori Province (''Turun ja Porin lääni''; ...

and the Swedish capital of

Stockholm Stockholm () is the capital and largest city of Sweden as well as the largest urban area in Scandinavia. Approximately 980,000 people live in the municipality, with 1.6 million in the urban area, and 2.4 million in the metropo ...

and the enclaved

Åland Åland ( fi, Ahvenanmaa: ; ; ) is an autonomous and demilitarised region of Finland since 1920 by a decision of the League of Nations. It is the smallest region of Finland by area and population, with a size of 1,580 km2, and a populat ...

Harbour

The port spans a wide area on the southern coastline of the city of

, from the mouth of the River Aura to the district of

Pansio Pansio is a district and a suburb of the city of Turku, Finland. It is located in the western part of the city. It has a population of 2,809 (), and an annual population growth of -3.83%. 19.25% of the district's population are under 15 years o ...

. The area around the railway station is served by the four (twice-daily)

Silja line Silja Line is a Swedish-Finnish cruiseferry brand operated by the Estonian ferry company Tallink, AS Tallink Grupp, for car, cargo and passenger traffic between Finland and Sweden. The former company Silja Oy—today Tallink Silja osakeyhtiö, O ...

and

Viking Line Viking Line Abp is a Finnish shipping company that operates a fleet of ferries and cruiseferries between Finland, the Åland Islands, Sweden and Estonia. Viking Line shares are quoted on the Helsinki Stock Exchange. Viking Line is operate ...

passenger ferry services to Stockholm via

Mariehamn Mariehamn ( , ; fi, Maarianhamina ; la, Portus Mariae) is the capital of Åland, an autonomous territory under Finnish sovereignty. Mariehamn is the seat of the Government and Parliament of Åland, and 40% of the population of Åland live in ...

, the capital of Åland.

Importance

Because of the port's location at the southwestern corner of Finland the harbour provides the most efficient route to serve the

Baltic Sea The Baltic Sea is an arm of the Atlantic Ocean that is enclosed by Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Russia, Sweden and the North and Central European Plain. The sea stretches from 53°N to 66°N latitude and from ...

. Turku Harbour is one of the most important shipment points in the country, handling over four million

tonne The tonne ( or ; symbol: t) is a unit of mass equal to 1000 kilograms. It is a non-SI unit accepted for use with SI. It is also referred to as a metric ton to distinguish it from the non-metric units of the short ton ( United State ...

s of

cargo Cargo consists of bulk goods conveyed by water, air, or land. In economics, freight is cargo that is transported at a freight rate for commercial gain. ''Cargo'' was originally a shipload but now covers all types of freight, including tra ...

and a corresponding four million passengers per year. As a comparison to

Helsinki-Vantaa Airport Helsinki-Vantaa Airport (; fi, Helsinki-Vantaan lentoasema, sv, Helsingfors-Vanda flygplats), or simply Helsinki Airport, is the main international airport of the city of Helsinki, its surrounding metropolitan area, and the Uusimaa region. Th ...

; Turku handles one third as many passengers per year, but thirty times as much freight annually. Daily passenger

ferry A ferry is a ship, watercraft or amphibious vehicle used to carry passengers, and sometimes vehicles and cargo, across a body of water. A passenger ferry with many stops, such as in Venice, Italy, is sometimes called a water bus or water ta ...

traffic is operated from Turku to

and

. Weekly ferry destinations include

Travemünde Travemünde () is a borough of Lübeck, Germany, located at the mouth of the river Trave in Lübeck Bay. It began life as a fortress built by Henry the Lion, Duke of Saxony, in the 12th century to guard the mouth of the Trave, and the Danes ...

Hamburg Hamburg (, ; nds, label=Hamburg German, Low Saxon, Hamborg ), officially the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg (german: Freie und Hansestadt Hamburg; nds, label=Low Saxon, Friee un Hansestadt Hamborg),. is the List of cities in Germany by popul ...

Lübeck Lübeck (; Low German also ), officially the Hanseatic City of Lübeck (german: Hansestadt Lübeck), is a city in Northern Germany. With around 217,000 inhabitants, Lübeck is the second-largest city on the German Baltic coast and in the state ...

Antwerp Antwerp (; nl, Antwerpen ; french: Anvers ; es, Amberes) is the largest city in Belgium by area at and the capital of Antwerp Province in the Flemish Region. With a population of 520,504,

Harwich Harwich is a town in Essex, England, and one of the Haven ports on the North Sea coast. It is in the Tendring District, Tendring district. Nearby places include Felixstowe to the north-east, Ipswich to the north-west, Colchester to the south-w ...

and Paldiski. There are also less frequent connections to popular holiday destinations such as

St Malo Saint-Malo (, , ; Gallo: ; ) is a historic French port in Ille-et-Vilaine, Brittany, on the English Channel coast. The walled city had a long history of piracy, earning much wealth from local extortion and overseas adventures. In 1944, the Alli ...

and several cities in

Spain , image_flag = Bandera de España.svg , image_coat = Escudo de España (mazonado).svg , national_motto = '' Plus ultra'' (Latin)(English: "Further Beyond") , national_anthem = (English: "Royal March") , ...

. The most important operators of ferry services are

Silja Line Silja Line is a Swedish-Finnish cruiseferry brand operated by the Estonian ferry company Tallink, AS Tallink Grupp, for car, cargo and passenger traffic between Finland and Sweden. The former company Silja Oy—today Tallink Silja osakeyhtiö, O ...

and

District

Port of Turku (

Finnish Finnish may refer to: * Something or someone from, or related to Finland * Culture of Finland * Finnish people or Finns, the primary ethnic group in Finland * Finnish language, the national language of the Finnish people * Finnish cuisine See also ...

''Turun satama'';

Swedish Swedish or ' may refer to: Anything from or related to Sweden, a country in Northern Europe. Or, specifically: * Swedish language, a North Germanic language spoken primarily in Sweden and Finland ** Swedish alphabet, the official alphabet used by ...

''Åbo hamn'') is also the name of a district of Turku, with boundaries roughly corresponding with those of the port's area. , the district had a registered residential population of forty-four people. The port is mentioned in the

Arab The Arabs (singular: Arab; singular ar, عَرَبِيٌّ, DIN 31635: , , plural ar, عَرَب, DIN 31635: , Arabic pronunciation: ), also known as the Arab people, are an ethnic group mainly inhabiting the Arab world in Western Asia, ...

geographer A geographer is a physical scientist, social scientist or humanist whose area of study is geography, the study of Earth's natural environment and human society, including how society and nature interacts. The Greek prefix "geo" means "earth" a ...

Muhammad al-Idrisi Abu Abdullah Muhammad al-Idrisi al-Qurtubi al-Hasani as-Sabti, or simply al-Idrisi ( ar, أبو عبد الله محمد الإدريسي القرطبي الحسني السبتي; la, Dreses; 1100 – 1165), was a Muslim geographer, cartogra ...

's 1154 book '' Kitab Rudjdjar'', reflecting Turku's status as a capital city and major

trading post.

Railway

Turku Harbour railway station is located adjacent to the main passenger-ferry berths used by the ferries to Stockholm in Sweden and has two full-length tracks arranged with a central platform between them. Passengers walk directly off the platform and onto the car-park and bus-station area in front of the ferry terminals. Most traffic to the station is by people wishing to board a ship at the port and the services are timed to overlap with the ferries berthing times. The station has direct boat-train services to

Helsinki Helsinki ( or ; ; sv, Helsingfors, ) is the Capital city, capital, primate city, primate, and List of cities and towns in Finland, most populous city of Finland. Located on the shore of the Gulf of Finland, it is the seat of the region of U ...

and towards

Pieksämäki Pieksämäki () is a town and municipality of Finland. It is located in the Southern Savonia region, about north of Mikkeli, east of Jyväskylä and south of Kuopio. The town has a population of () and covers an area of of which is wa ...

(terminating or starting in

Tampere Tampere ( , , ; sv, Tammerfors, ) is a city in the Pirkanmaa region, located in the western part of Finland. Tampere is the most populous inland city in the Nordic countries. It has a population of 244,029; the urban area has a population ...

). All services to and from Turku Harbour call at

Turku Central railway station Turku Central Station (, ) is a railway station in the VII District of Turku, Finland. It has VR services to Helsinki and towards Joensuu (most terminate in Tampere or Pieksämäki). The station serves approximately a million passengers annually ...

. The three kilometre journey between the two stations takes around seven minutes, involving the slow-speed crossing of several main roads with

level crossing A level crossing is an intersection where a railway line crosses a road, path, or (in rare situations) airport runway, at the same level, as opposed to the railway line crossing over or under using an overpass or tunnel. The term a ...

s, passing the city's residential and industrial areas. The phrase Turku Harbour is the semi-official English name of the

railway station Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport that transfers passengers and goods on wheeled vehicles running on rails, which are incorporated in Track (rail transport), tracks. In contrast to road transport, where the ...

, being used in English-language timetables and "next stop" announcements on board VR trains. Note that although the station has direct through

sleeping car The sleeping car or sleeper (often ) is a railway passenger car that can accommodate all passengers in beds of one kind or another, for the purpose of sleeping. George Pullman was the American innovator of the sleeper car. The first such cars ...

services to

Rovaniemi Rovaniemi ( , ; sme, Roavvenjárga ; smn, Ruávinjargâ; sms, Ruäʹvnjargg) is a city and municipality of Finland. It is the administrative capital and commercial centre of Finland's northernmost province, Lapland, and its southern part Pe ...

and

Kolari Kolari is a municipality of Finland at the Swedish border, which follows the Torne River, the longest free-flowing river in Europe. It is located in the region of Lapland. The municipality has a population of () and covers an area of of whic ...

in the north of Finland, passengers using the car-carrying trains are required to drive into the centre of the town to load their vehicles at

where appropriate ramps are installed.

Cargo

Turku was the only port in Finland with a

train ferry A train ferry is a ship (ferry) designed to carry railway vehicles. Typically, one level of the ship is fitted with railway tracks, and the vessel has a door at the front and/or rear to give access to the wharves. In the United States, train ...

service. Between June 1989 and December 2011

SeaWind Line SeaWind Line was a subsidiary of the Finnish passenger shipping company Silja Line, later owned by the Estonian company Tallink. In 2010, the Sea Wind brand ceased to exist and the remaining ship, MS ''Sea Wind'', was transferred to Tallink col ...

provided a limited

operation for cargo. Because of the gauge difference between Finland ( 1,524 mm) and the rest of Europe ( 1,435 mm), through service was using special

variable gauge A variable gauge system allows railway vehicles in a train to travel across a break of gauge between two railway networks with different track gauges. For through operation, a train must be equipped with special bogies holding variable gauge w ...

rolling stock. The tracks in Stockholm and on the ferry itself were standard gauge, with a short section of standard gauge in the harbour area to enable hauling the wagons off the ferry before the gauge of the axles was altered using

bogie exchange Bogie exchange is a system for operating railway wagons on two or more gauges to overcome difference in the track gauge. To perform a bogie exchange, a car is converted from one gauge to another by removing the bogies or trucks (the chassis cont ...

References

External links

Port of Turku
website. * VR (Finnish National Railways) information

/nowiki> Railway Station]. {{coord, 60.435278, N, 22.219784, E, display=title Railway stations in Southwest Finland

Districts of Turku Buildings and structures in Turku