Kristinestad
coat of arms | map |
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Basic data | |
State : | Finland |
Landscape : | Ostrobothnia |
Administrative community : | South Ostrobothnia |
Geographical location | 62 ° 17 ′ N , 21 ° 23 ′ E |
Surface: | 1,678.99 km² |
of which land area: | 682.5 km² |
of which inland waterways: | 14.66 km² |
of which sea area: | 981.79 km² |
Residents : | 6,596 (Dec. 31, 2018) |
Population density : | 9.7 inhabitants / km² |
Municipality number : | 287 |
Language (s) : | Swedish , Finnish |
Website : | www.kristinestad.fi |
Kristinestad (Swedish), Finnish Kristiinankaupunki , is a city in the western Finnish region of Ostrobothnia . It is halfway around 100 km between the towns of Vaasa and Pori on the archipelago of the Gulf of Bothnia . 57% of the 6596 inhabitants (as of December 31, 2018) are Finland-Swedes , 42% speak Finnish as their mother tongue. The city is officially bilingual.
history
Kristinestad was founded in 1649 by the Swedish Governor General in Finland, Count Per Brahe the Younger , on the island of Koppö, which previously belonged to the Lappfjärd parish . On March 1, 1651, Brahe decreed that the name of the town was changed from Koppö to Kristinestad ( Christinae Stadh ). Queen Christina of Sweden is considered to be the namesake, but it is believed that Brahe wanted to erect a memorial above all to his wife, Countess Kristina Katarina Stenbock, who died in 1650.
Kristinestad developed hesitantly at first, but after the port was given stacking rights in 1792, it quickly grew into a prosperous city, as can be seen in representative buildings such as the town hall built in 1856 and the around 3,000 wooden houses and warehouses in the city center.
Worth seeing
Along with Rauma and Porvoo , Kristinestad is one of the largest and best-preserved wooden house towns in Finland.
The single-nave Ulrike Eleonore Church was completed in 1700 and, with its leaning church tower, is one of the city's landmarks. The services of the two evangelical parishes - the Finnish and the Swedish-speaking ones - mostly take place in the new town church built in 1897, a 1000 people one-nave brick building.
By far the largest church in the city is in the town of Lappfjärd ( Lapväärti in Finnish ), which was incorporated in 1973 . This cruciform church, built in 1852, with a free-standing bell tower offers space for 3,000 worshipers, the length of the pews should be 1.6 km in total.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Maanmittauslaitos (Finnish land surveying office): Suomen pinta-alat kunnittain January 1, 2010 . (PDF; 199 kB)
- ↑ Statistical Office Finland: Table 11ra - Key figures on population by region, 1990-2018
- ↑ Kristinestads turism rf ( Memento of the original from July 1, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.