Vasa

• Vaasa is the sunniest city in Finland with an average of 1,900 sunshine hours per year.
• Every third person you meet in the street is a student or school pupil; every fifth person studies at one of the universities.
• The population of Vaasa is growing rapidly and amounts at present to about 65,000 inhabitants. The whole region has around 110,000 inhabitants.
• In the city 71% speak Finnish and 23% speak Swedish as their mother tongues. 6% of the inhabitants speak other native languages.
• People from more than 100 different countries live in Vaasa.
• The Kvarken archipelago off the coast of Vaasa is Finland’s only World Natural Heritage site included on the Unesco list of World Heritage sites. The area was added to the list due to the rapid land uplift.
• Vaasa has the largest cluster of energy technology companies in the Nordic countries.
• Vaasa has a long history; the city was founded already in 1606.
• In 1852 the whole city of Vaasa burned to the ground, but was rebuilt in 1862, seven kilometres from its original location. (The place is today called “Vanha Vaasa”/”Gamla Vasa”)