In
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, ...
, an
urban area
An urban area is a human settlement with a high population density and an infrastructure of built environment. Urban areas originate through urbanization, and researchers categorize them as cities, towns, conurbations or suburbs. In urbani ...
('','' ) is defined as a cluster of dwellings with at least 200 inhabitants and may be a city, town or larger village. It is a purely statistical concept, not defined by any municipal or county boundaries.
[
The largest urban area in Finland is the Helsinki urban area with over 1.3 million inhabitants in 2019.][ It extends across Helsinki as well as ten other municipalities in 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 second largest is the Tampere urban area with about 342,000 inhabitants in 2019,[ and the third largest is the Turku urban area with about 278,000 inhabitants in 2019.][
The presence of urban areas is used to regulate traffic, with a default of ]speed limit
Speed limits on road traffic, as used in most countries, set the legal maximum speed at which vehicles may travel on a given stretch of road. Speed limits are generally indicated on a traffic sign reflecting the maximum permitted speed, express ...
inside an urban area and outside. Each major road leading in or out of an urban area is marked with a road sign.
See also
*List of urban areas in Finland by population
This is a list of urban areas in Finland by population, with the 100 largest localities or urban areas in Finland on 31 December 2019. The list is based on data from Statistics Finland that defines an urban area as a cluster of dwellings with at l ...
*List of cities and towns in Finland
The following is a list of cities and towns (, ) in Finland. The basic administrative unit of Finland is municipality. Since 1977, there is no legal difference between towns and municipalities, and a municipality can independently decide to call ...
*Urban areas in the Nordic countries
An urban area in the Nordic countries, with the exception of Iceland, is defined as a distinct statistical concept used to differentiate population clusters independent of municipal borders. The population is measured on a national level, independe ...
*Dispersed settlement
A dispersed settlement, also known as a scattered settlement, is one of the main types of settlement patterns used by landscape historians to classify rural settlements found in England and other parts of the world. Typically, there are a num ...
References
Types of administrative division
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