Every design for Uusikaupunki

Uusikaupunki is known for its car factory and for a wooden town centre that is among the best-preserved Empire-style quarters in Finland, laid out on a grid of wide streets, large blocks and narrow alleys. It holds a place in European history too: the treaty that ended the Great Northern War was concluded here, and it still carries the town's Swedish name, Nystad.

For people from here, the town feels like the sea. In the great age of sail, several shipyards worked at once and the merchant fleet ranked among the largest in Finland, its ships bound for Stockholm and Copenhagen. Luotsimuseo, the pilot museum, Merimiehenkotimuseo and Wahlbergin museotalo keep that maritime life close, while Uudenkaupungin automuseo tells the newer story of the car plant. Offshore, the outer archipelago belongs to the Bothnian Sea National Park, and the town library is one of the oldest working library buildings in the country.

Grow up here and the map is a grid you can walk with your eyes closed: the alleys down to the water, the wooden blocks, the way to the harbour.