Mariehamn
| coat of arms | map |
|---|---|
|
|
| Basic data | |
| State : |
 Finland
|
| Landscape : | Åland |
| Administrative community : | Mariehamn |
| Geographical location | 60 ° 6 ′ N , 19 ° 55 ′ E |
| Surface: | 20.75 km² |
| of which land area: | 11.79 km² |
| of which sea area: | 8.96 km² |
| Residents : | 11,743 (Dec. 31, 2018) |
| Population density : | 996 inhabitants / km² |
| Municipality number : | 478 |
| Postcodes : | 22100-22160 |
| Language (s) : | Swedish |
| Website : | mariehamn.ax |
-Finnland-metrisch-deutsch.png)
.JPG)
(Finnish Maarianhamina) is the capital of the autonomousFinnishregion ofÅlandand the only city in the Åland Islands. It is located on the main island ofFasta Ålandand forms one of threeadministrative communities inÅland. Mariehamn isSwedish-speakingand has a population of 11,743 (as of December 31, 2018). It is the seat of theLagting(formerly calledLandsting), the parliament of the autonomous province of Åland.
Mariehamn ("Mariahafen") was named after Maria Alexandrovna , the wife of Tsar Alexander II , who founded the city in 1861 when Finland and Åland belonged to the Russian Empire .
history
The right-angled city center of Mariehamn goes back to a plan by the architect Georg Theodor Chiewitz from 1859. Originally, by order of the tsar, the city was to consist entirely of stone buildings; but already in 1863 this was abandoned and the construction of wooden houses permitted.
Towards the end of the 1880s, plans arose to develop Mariehamn into a spa and bathing resort; therefore, a spa house and a large beach hotel were built at today's Westhafen in 1889 and in 1900. The two representative lime tree avenues, which still shape the face of the city today and which earned it the nickname “City of 1000 Linden trees”, were laid out in 1900.
From the 1920s to the 1940s, Mariehamn Heimathafen was one of the last large windjammer fleets under the shipowner Gustaf Erikson . His ships included several former Flying P-Liners , the ships of the Hamburg shipping company F. Laeisz , which are famous for their speed , such as the Pamir , which sank under the German flag in 1957, and the sister ships Passat and Beijing , which are now museum ships in Travemünde and Hamburg . The four-masted barque Pommern , also a former Flying P-Liner, has remained in the port of Mariehamn .
Population development
The city's population has risen continuously over the past thirty years (as of December 31, 2018):
| Population development of Mariehamn | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| year | 1987 | 1990 | 1997 | 2000 | 2006 | 2012 | 2018 | |
| Residents | 9,966 | 10,263 | 10,408 | 10,488 | 10,824 | 11,346 | 11,743 | |
politics
A new city council was elected in the last local elections in 2015, which took place at the same time as the 2015 Åland parliamentary elections. The Moderate Collection for Åland emerged as the election winner , closely followed by Åland's Social Democrats . Both parties won seven seats each . Compared to the results of the rural communities in Åland, Mariehamn shows that the Moderate Collection for Åland and Åland's Social Democrats achieve significantly better election results in Åland's only city than in the countryside. All other parties also achieved a better average result in Mariehamn than in the country, as many independent candidates ran in the country . Only the Åland center as the Nordic agricultural party is weaker in Mariehamn in contrast to the rural communities.
The local elections on October 20, 2019 came to the following results:
The Moderate Rally Party lost its position as the strongest force on the city council to the Liberals . A new addition is the Sustainable Initiative , which advocates ecologically oriented politics in the spirit of green parties. The Åland Democrats lost the seat they won in the last election.
Economy and transportation
Mariehamn is easily accessible by ship. The large ferries from Stockholm , Kapellskär , Turku , Helsinki and Tallinn of the ferry companies Viking Line , Silja Line and Tallink sometimes call at Mariehamn several times a day. In terms of the tonnage of the merchant fleet, Mariehamn is the second largest Finnish port city after Helsinki. The attractiveness of the port is based on the fact that various products are exempt from tax, as Åland is outside the common EU customs zone and therefore certain goods can be sold duty-free on the islands.
The airport Mariehamn Airport is located in the neighboring municipality of Jomala , about 3 kilometers northwest of the center of Mariehamn.
Mariehamn is the headquarters of most of the major Åland companies. The Åland shipping companies Viking Line and Rederiaktiebolaget Eckerö , the Taffel crisps factory and Ålandsbanken have their headquarters here.
Culture and sights
The center of Mariehamn is the market square (Torget), on which a bell tower and a music pavilion were built. Here is also the white marble clad parliament building (Lagting) of the Åland Islands, which was built by Helmer Stenros in 1976–1978. The representative town hall (Stadshus) of the city rises on a hill south of the market square , built in 1938 according to the plans of the Finnish architect Lars Sonck (1870–1956) in the typical style of the 1930s. The town hall is surrounded by well-kept parks in which several monuments have been erected, e.g. B. for the Russian Tsarina Maria Alexandrovna, after whom the city is named. In the nearby Södragatan street , numerous buildings from the time Mariehamn was founded have been preserved.
The seafarers' quarter (Sjökvarteret) , which consists of renovated boat sheds and wooden houses, is worth seeing at the eastern harbor , where old ships are restored in a small shipyard and new ships are built according to old plans. Directly by the sea is the small ecumenical seafarers' chapel (Sjöfararkapellet), which covers an area of approx. 5 × 7 m and was built from wood by volunteers in 2008. She will u. a. used for weddings and christenings and reminds of the tradition that in the past, religious services were held for seafarers immediately before the start of a dangerous journey.
One of the most striking new buildings in Mariehamn is the city library, which was completed in 1989 according to plans by Hans J. Stenius.
At the west harbor is the famous Åland Islands Maritime Museum (Ålands Sjöfartsmuseum), in front of which the sculptor Emil Cederkreutz erected the monument “The man at the wheel” in 1936 to commemorate the sailors who stayed at sea. The memorial also has a wall on which the names of many of the seamen who suffered this fate are engraved. Not far from the western harbor, the nautical school, built by Lars Sonck in 1937–1938 and now part of the Åland Islands University, rises on a hill. The Nautical School was founded in Godby in 1854 and moved to its current location in 1866.
Town twinning
Sister cities are Mariehamn
Personalities
sons and daughters of the town
- Kaarlo Mäkinen (1892–1980), wrestler and Olympic champion
- Mikael Granskog (* 1961), football player and official
- Stefan Lindfors (* 1962), interior architect and designer
- Henrik Klingenberg (* 1978), keyboardist
- Daniel Sjölund (* 1983), soccer player
With ties to the city
- Amanda Chanfreau (* 1983), artist, grew up in Mariehamn
- Gustaf Erikson (1872–1947), the last major shipowner in a pure sailing fleet, died in Mariehamn
- Pekka Yli-Niemi (1937–1963), ski jumper, died in Mariehamn
Web links
swell
- ↑ 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
- ↑ Software: Geoklima 2.1
- ↑ Heiner Labonde: Finland - Åland Islands. Offenbach 2011, p. 99.
- ↑ Kjell Ekström: Åland - skärgård i Östersjön. Mariehamn 2006, p. 53.
- ↑ a b Kjell Ekström: Åland - skärgård i Östersjön. Mariehamn 2006, p. 51.
- ↑ Lagtings- och kommunalvalet 2015. ÅSUB Statistics, pp. 41–46 , accessed on June 11, 2019 (Swedish).
- ↑ Lagtings- och kommunalvalet 2011 ( Memento from February 19, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Statistics 7: 2011 (ÅSUB), p. 5
- ↑ Lagtings-och kommunalvalet 2019 (parliamentary and local elections 2019) ( Swedish ); PDF 953.5 KB, accessed on May 6, 2020
- ↑ Heiner Labonde: Finland - Åland Islands. Offenbach 2011, p. 110.
- ↑ Kjell Ekström: Åland - skärgård i Östersjön. Mariehamn 2006, p. 46.
- ↑ Heiner Labonde: Finland - Åland Islands. Offenbach 2011, p. 105.
- ^ Mariehamn website
