Sipoo (; ) is a

municipality 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' ...

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 part of the

Helsinki metropolitan area 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 municipality has a population of () and covers an area of of which is water. The

population density Population density (in agriculture: Standing stock (disambiguation), standing stock or plant density) is a measurement of population per unit land area. It is mostly applied to humans, but sometimes to other living organisms too. It is a key geog ...

is . The administrative center of the municipality is Nikkilä (),Uusi Nikkilä – Uusi Kaupunki
(in Finnish) which is located northeast of the center of Helsinki. Another significant urban area is Söderkulla, located in the southern part of the municipality. Sipoo is a

bilingual Multilingualism is the use of more than one language, either by an individual speaker or by a group of speakers. When the languages are just two, it is usually called bilingualism. It is believed that multilingual speakers outnumber monolin ...

municipality with Finnish and Swedish as its official languages. The population consists of Finnish speakers, Swedish speakers, and speakers of other languages. The coat of arms of the municipality refers to the origin story of the settlement, according to which the ancestors of Sipoo are said to have arrived in the region on a

viking ship Viking ships were marine vessels of unique structure, used in Scandinavia throughout the Middle Ages. The boat-types were quite varied, depending on what the ship was intended for, but they were generally characterized as being slender and flexi ...

, the bow of which was decorated with a head of

wolf The wolf (''Canis lupus''; : wolves), also known as the grey wolf or gray wolf, is a Canis, canine native to Eurasia and North America. More than thirty subspecies of Canis lupus, subspecies of ''Canis lupus'' have been recognized, includin ...

; accordingly, locals have even been called the “wolves of Sipoo”. The wave lined fess of the coat of arms refers to the Sipoo River.

Geography

It is the eastern neighbour of

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 ...

and western neighbour of

Porvoo Porvoo (; ; ) is a city in Finland. It is located on the south coast of the country, on the Gulf of Finland. Porvoo lies in the eastern part of the Uusimaa region. The population of Porvoo is approximately , while the Porvoo sub-region, sub-re ...

, located in the Uusimaa

region In geography, regions, otherwise referred to as areas, zones, lands or territories, are portions of the Earth's surface that are broadly divided by physical characteristics (physical geography), human impact characteristics (human geography), and ...

. Other neighboring municipalities are Vantaa, Kerava,

Tuusula Tuusula (; ) is a municipality in Finland, located in the southern interior of the country. Tuusula is situated in the centre of the Uusimaa region. The population of Tuusula is approximately . It is the most populous Municipalities of Finland, ...

, Järvenpää, Mäntsälä and

Pornainen Pornainen (; ) is a small municipalities of Finland, municipality of Finland. It is located in the provinces of Finland, province of Southern Finland and is part of the Uusimaa regions of Finland, region. The neighboring municipalities are Askola ...

. There are two important road connections in the direction of Helsinki from Sipoo: Highway 7, known as the Porvoo Highway (part of E18), and Road 170, which is known as the Itäväylä on the Helsinki side. The once almost completely Swedish-speaking municipality is

since 1953, a majority being Finnish speakers, due to migration from other parts of Finland since 2003. Today the Finnish-speaking majority stands at and the Swedish-speaking minority comprises about of the population. On June 26, 2006, the Sipoo town council decided on a strategy to triple the municipality's population over the next 25 years. The decision was made after Helsinki announced plans to annex a part of the municipality in order to continue to build high-end urbanizations by the coastline (and thus high-tax revenue producing). The Finnish Council of State voted in favor of the annexation on June 28, 2007, with an 8 to 4 vote. Sipoo appealed to the Supreme Administrative Court, but the court upheld the decision of the Council of StateSupreme Administrative Court Precedent KHO:2008:1
ruled on January 15, 2008 (in Finnish) and the annexation took place on January 1, 2009. As Helsinki did not directly border Sipoo at any point, the city of Vantaa ceded the area lain between Helsinki and Sipoo to Helsinki in the process.

Politics

Results of the

2019 Finnish parliamentary election Parliamentary elections were held in Finland on 14 April 2019. For the first time, no party received more than 20% of the vote. The Centre Party, which had been the largest party following the 2015 Finnish parliamentary election, 2015 elections, ...

in Sipoo: * Swedish People's Party 25.4% *

National Coalition Party The National Coalition Party (NCP; , Kok; , Saml) is a liberal conservatism, liberal-conservative List of political parties in Finland, political party in Finland. It is the current governing political party of Finland. Founded in 1918, the ...

23.8% * Finns Party 12.5% * Social Democratic Party 10.8% * Green League 9.8% * Movement Now 5.3% * Centre Party 4.1% * Left Alliance 2.9% * Christian Democrats 2.3% *Other parties 3.1%

Notable people

* Hjallis Harkimo (born 1953), businessman and politician * Stéphane Rosse (1962–2024), French cartoonist * Elina Salo (born 1936), actress * Nasty Suicide (born 1963), guitarist for

Hanoi Rocks Hanoi Rocks were a Finnish Rock music, rock band formed in 1979. They were the first Finnish band to chart in the UK and they were also popular in Japan. By 1984, the band was considered to be on the verge of an international breakthrough when ...

* Ernst Tandefelt (1876–1948), Swedo-Finnish nobleman * Joona Toivio (born 1988), professional association

football player A football player or footballer is a sportsperson who plays one of the different types of football. The main types of football are association football, American football, Canadian football, Australian rules football, Gaelic football, rugby ...

* Zachris Topelius (1818–1898), Swedo-Finnish author, poet and journalist * Artturi Ilmari Virtanen (1895–1973), Nobel laureate * Mikael Ylöstalo (1963), Olympian hurdler

In media

Sipoo is featured in Elisa Viihde network's

black comedy Black comedy, also known as black humor, bleak comedy, dark comedy, dark humor, gallows humor or morbid humor, is a style of comedy that makes light of subject matter that is generally considered taboo, particularly subjects that are normally ...

television series '' Duke of Sipoo'' (), starring a corrupted Sipolian businessman Pasi Kovalainen, played by Kari Hietalahti.IMDb – Sipoon Herttua: Duke of Sipoo
/ref>

Twin towns

* Aurskog-Høland,

Norway Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic countries, Nordic country located on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and the archipelago of Svalbard also form part of the Kingdom of ...

* Frederikssund,

Denmark Denmark is a Nordic countries, Nordic country in Northern Europe. It is the metropole and most populous constituent of the Kingdom of Denmark,, . also known as the Danish Realm, a constitutionally unitary state that includes the Autonomous a ...

* Kumla,

Sweden Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden, is a Nordic countries, Nordic country located on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. It borders Norway to the west and north, and Finland to the east. At , Sweden is the largest Nordic count ...

* Kuusalu,

Estonia Estonia, officially the Republic of Estonia, is a country in Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland across from Finland, to the west by the Baltic Sea across from Sweden, to the south by Latvia, and to the east by Ru ...

References

External links

Municipality of Sipoo
– Official website

{{Authority control Greater Helsinki Municipalities of Eastern Uusimaa Municipalities of Uusimaa