Turku

Turku (/ˈtʊərkuː/ TOOR-koo; Finnish: [ˈturku] ^ⓘ; Swedish: Åbo, Finland Swedish: [ˈoːbu] ^ⓘ) is a city in Finland and the regional capital of Southwest Finland. It is located on the southwestern coast of the country at the mouth of the River Aura. The population of Turku is approximately 207,000, while the metropolitan area has a population of approximately 317,000. It is the 6th–most populous municipality in Finland, and the third–most populous urban area in the country after Helsinki and Tampere.

Turku is Finland's oldest city. It is not known when Turku was granted city status. Pope Gregory IX first mentioned the town of Aboa in his Bulla in 1229, and this year is now used as the founding year of the city. Turku was the most important city in the eastern part (today's Finland) of the Kingdom of Sweden. After the Finnish War, Finland became an autonomous Grand Duchy of the Russian Empire in 1809, and Turku became the capital of the Grand Duchy. However, Turku lost its status as capital only three years later in 1812, when Tsar Alexander I of Russia decided to move the capital to Helsinki. It was only after the last great fire in 1827 that most government institutions were moved to Helsinki along with the Royal Academy of Turku, founded in 1640, which later became the University of Helsinki, thus consolidating Helsinki's position as the new capital. Turku was Finland's most populous city until the late 1840s and remains the regional capital, an important business and cultural centre, and a port.

Due to its long history, Turku has been the site of many important events and, as a former capital, has had a major influence on Finnish history. Together with Tallinn, the capital of Estonia, Turku was named European Capital of Culture for 2011. In 1996, the city of Turku was declared the "Christmas City" of Finland. Turku has also been officially declared the Food Capital of Finland, as it is home to some of Finland's oldest and highest-quality restaurants, as well as a historically famous fish market held twice a year. Turku's canteen and café culture has often been compared to French food culture, which is why Turku is sometimes known as the "Paris of Finland", and explains the existence of the Swedish saying "Varför Paris, vi har ju Åbo!" ("Why [should we concern ourselves with] Paris? We have Turku!").

Turku is a bilingual municipality with Finnish and Swedish as its official languages. The population consists of 78% Finnish speakers, 5% Swedish speakers, and 17% speakers of other languages, which is well above the national average.

Due to its location, the Port of Turku is an important commercial and passenger seaport, with over three million passengers travelling to Stockholm and Mariehamn each year.

The Finnish name Turku is related to the word torg, which is found in the Scandinavian and modern Russian languages and means "market". Although direct borrowing from Old Russian tŭrgŭ (търгъ) is often assumed, it is more likely that the word spread through Varangian trade networks than through the presence of Russian merchants in Finland. According to linguist Kaisa Häkkinen [fi], the word likely entered Finnish via Estonian, where turg still retains the meaning "market". Over time, the original meaning faded in Finnish, and by the Middle Ages, turku had become synonymous with the town's name. Today the word survives primarily in idiomatic expressions.

For the Swedish name, the most widely accepted interpretation holds that Åbo is a simple combination of å ("river, creek, large stream") and bo ("dwelling, settlement"), referring to a settlement by the Aura River. Nevertheless, several alternative interpretations have been proposed. One suggests that the name derives from the personal name Abraham, possibly in a shortened form such as Abo. Another theory considers Åbo a reinterpretation or translation of the Finnish name Turku. A third possibility links the name to monastic naming traditions, particularly the Dominican monastery at Åhus in Skåne, which may have served as a model when the Dominican order established a monastery in the area during the 13th century. Linguist Mikko Heikkilä has also proposed that Åbo developed from an earlier, unattested form Aborg, which would have originally referred to the Vanhalinna hillfort in nearby Lieto.

In Finnish, the genitive of Turku is Turun, meaning "of Turku". The Finnish names of organizations and institutes of Turku often begin with this word, as in Turun yliopisto for the University of Turku.