Helsinki is the capital and largest city of Finland. The population of the city of Helsinki is 573,789 (31 October 2008). The Greater Helsinki area contains 12 municipalities and has a population of over 1,300,000.

Helsinki is Finland's capital for business, education, research, culture, and government. Greater Helsinki has eight universities and six technology parks. Some 70% of foreign companies operating in Finland have settled in the Helsinki region. The immigration of rural residents has made it one of the fastest growing metropolitan areas in Europe.

Founded in 1550 as a rival to the Hanseatic city of Reval (today: Tallinn) by King Gustav I of Sweden, the town of Helsinki struggled in its infancy. The fledgling settlement was plagued by poverty, wars, and diseases. For a long time it remained a small coastal town, overshadowed by the more thriving trade centers in the Baltic region. The construction of the Sveaborg naval fortress helped improve its status, but it was not until Russia defeated Sweden in the Finnish War and annexed Finland as the autonomous Grand Duchy of Finland in 1809 that Helsinki began to develop into a major city.

Despite the tumultous first half of the 20th century, Helsinki continued to develop steadily. The rapid urbanization of the 1970s, which occurred relatively late in the European context, tripled the population in the metropolitan area, making the Helsinki metropolitan area one of the fastest growing urban centers in the European Union in the 1990s. The relatively sparse population density of Helsinki and its peculiar structure have often been attributed to the lateness of the urbanisation. Thus today the Helsinki metropolitan area is the second most sparsely populated EU-capital after Brussels.

Since the 1950s, the economy has become largely service-based, although industries such as shipbuilding continue to employ a substantial number of people. Large service-based employers include the public sector and the information technology sector. Helsinki has many staffing agencies. 83 of the 100 largest Finnish companies are headquartered in Greater Helsinki. Two thirds of the 200 highest-paid Finnish executives live in Greater Helsinki and 42% in Helsinki.

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