Every design for Espoo

Long before Helsinki existed, people were already living along the shore that is now Espoo: Stone Age dwelling sites have been found at Nuuksio, among other places, and the city's first written mention dates from the fifteenth century. Its name is tied to the river Espoonjoki, and in Swedish the city is still Esbo.

Ask people who grew up here what Espoo feels like and many will describe the space: detached houses, woods behind the garden, lakes in the north and an archipelago along the coast. There is no single city centre, but five of them, Leppävaara, Tapiola, Matinkylä, Espoon keskus and Espoonlahti, each with its own crowd and its own shopping street. Espoon keskuspuisto keeps a broad belt of forest running through the middle, Talomuseo Glims preserves an old farmstead, and Gumbölen kartano recalls the manors that local centres grew around. Otaniemi, home to Aalto University, gives the city its reputation for technology.

Whichever of those centres you call your own, the map shows how they fit together, and where the road home turns off.