Helsingin pitäjän kirkonkylä (; lit. Helsinki Parish Village) is a city

district A district is a type of administrative division that in some countries is managed by the local government. Across the world, areas known as "districts" vary greatly in size, spanning regions or county, counties, several municipality, municip ...

Vantaa Vantaa (; , ) is a city in Finland. It is located to the north of the capital, Helsinki, in southern Uusimaa. The population of Vantaa is approximately . It is the most populous municipality in Finland. Vantaa is part of the Helsinki Metropoli ...

Finland Finland, officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It borders Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of Bothnia to the west and the Gulf of Finland to the south, ...

. It is located in central Vantaa, in the

Tikkurila Tikkurila (; ) is a Districts of Vantaa, district and major region of the Municipalities of Finland, municipality of Vantaa, Finland. Located in the eastern half of the Greater Helsinki, Helsinki conurbation, some north of the capital's downtow ...

major region. It is bordered to the north by the

Ring III Kehä III (''"ring three"'', ''National road 50''; or or ; or ) is an important Highways in Finland, highway in Southern Finland. It is the outermost of the three beltways in Helsinki capital region, and the first one to be built. It lies ac ...

beltway A ring road (also known as circular road, beltline, beltway, circumferential (high)way, loop or orbital) is a road or a series of connected roads encircling a town, city or country. The most common purpose of a ring road is to assist in reducin ...

, the west by the

Tuusulanväylä The Finnish national road 45 (; ) is the 2nd class main route between the major cities of Helsinki and Hyvinkää in southern Finland. It runs from Käpylä in Helsinki to the Hyrylä in Tuusula as a motorway called ''Tuusula Highway'' (, ),

highway, and south and east by the

Helsinki Helsinki () is the Capital city, capital and most populous List of cities and towns in Finland, city in Finland. It is on the shore of the Gulf of Finland and is the seat of southern Finland's Uusimaa region. About people live in the municipali ...

neighbourhood A neighbourhood (Commonwealth English) or neighborhood (American English) is a geographically localized community within a larger town, city, suburb or rural area, sometimes consisting of a single street and the buildings lining it. Neighbourh ...

of Siltamäki. The Helsinki–Vantaa Airport is located northwest of the district. The district is regarded as an important cultural and historic site, as it remains one of the best preserved parishes in southern Finland and the original settlement within

Greater Helsinki Helsinki metropolitan area (, ) or Greater Helsinki (, ) is the metropolitan area around Helsinki, the capital city of Finland. It also includes the smaller Helsinki capital region, capital region. The terms Helsinki metropolitan area, Greater H ...

. The Church of St. Lawrence, the oldest building in Greater Helsinki, is located there. In 2009, the

Finnish National Board of Antiquities The Finnish Heritage Agency (, ), previously known in English as the National Board of Antiquities, preserves Finland's material cultural heritage: collects, studies and distributes knowledge of it. The agency is a cultural and research institutio ...

declared the parish an official culturally significant site. In terms of land area, the district is the smallest in all of Vantaa, covering a total of . Its population is also among the smallest, with 147 inhabitants in January 2014. Roughly a third of the population is Swedish-speaking, and all schools in the district are taught in Swedish.

History

The area was first settled around the 12th century by Swedish settlers sailing up the

Vantaanjoki The Vantaa (, ) is a long river in Southern Finland. The river starts from the lake in Hausjärvi and flows into the Gulf of Finland at ' in Helsinki. One of the tributaries of the Vantaa river is Keravanjoki that flows through the town of ...

river. The parish was established at the meeting point of the Vantaanjoki and

Keravanjoki The ' (; the Kerava River) is a river in Finland. The 65-kilometer-long river starts from Lake Ridasjärvi in Hyvinkää.

rivers. It expanded as the coastal

King's Road King's Road or Kings Road (or sometimes the King's Road, especially when it was the king's private road until 1830, or as a colloquialism by middle/upper class London residents) is a major street stretching through Chelsea and Fulham, both ...

connecting

Turku Turku ( ; ; , ) is a city in Finland and the regional capital of Southwest Finland. It is located on the southwestern coast of the country at the mouth of the Aura River (Finland), River Aura. The population of Turku is approximately , while t ...

and

Vyborg Vyborg (; , ; , ; , ) is a town and the administrative center of Vyborgsky District in Leningrad Oblast, Russia. It lies on the Karelian Isthmus near the head of Vyborg Bay, northwest of St. Petersburg, east of the Finnish capital H ...

connected to the town. The Church of St. Lawrence was established in the mid-15th century as the center of the parish, and remains the oldest building in all of

. The parish was the largest township in the area, until the port city of

was established along the coast in 1550. In 1865, when the

Grand Duchy of Finland The Grand Duchy of Finland was the predecessor state of modern Finland. It existed from 1809 to 1917 as an Autonomous region, autonomous state within the Russian Empire. Originating in the 16th century as a titular grand duchy held by the Monarc ...

established

municipalities A municipality is usually a single administrative division having municipal corporation, corporate status and powers of self-government or jurisdiction as granted by national and regional laws to which it is subordinate. The term ''municipality' ...

, the area became known as ''Helsinge socken'' and ''Helsingin maalaiskunta'' ("Rural Municipality of Helsinki"), which later became the city of

. The mining of

ore Ore is natural rock or sediment that contains one or more valuable minerals, typically including metals, concentrated above background levels, and that is economically viable to mine and process. The grade of ore refers to the concentration ...

deposits around Malmi gradually transferred industry and housing toward central Vantaa, leaving Helsingin pitäjän kirkonkylä a sparsely populated historical site. Today, Helsingin pitäjän kirkonkylä remains one of the best preserved townships in

Uusimaa Uusimaa (; , ; both lit. 'new land') is a region of Finland. It borders the regions of Southwest Finland, Tavastia Proper (Kanta-Häme), Päijänne Tavastia (Päijät-Häme), and Kymenlaakso. Finland's capital and largest city, Helsinki, alo ...

. Its area has been narrowed by the construction of both the

and

highways, which intersect in the area. In 2009, the

declared the parish an official culturally significant site.

References

External links

{{commonscat, Helsingin pitäjän kirkonkylä
Helsingin pitäjän kirkonkylä
on the

website History of Helsinki Historic sites in Finland Districts of Vantaa

History

See also

References

External links