Vantaa

Vantaa (Finnish pronunciation: [ˈʋɑntɑː]; Swedish: Vanda) is a city and municipality in Finland. It is part of the inner core of the Finnish Capital Region along with Helsinki, Espoo, and Kauniainen. With its population of 212,473 (30 June 2015), Vantaa is the fourth most populated city of Finland.

Vantaa is bordered by Helsinki, the Finnish capital, to the south; Espoo to the southwest; Nurmijärvi to the northwest; Kerava and Tuusula to the north; and Sipoo to the east. The city encompasses 240.34 square kilometres (92.80 sq mi), of which 1.97 km² (0.76 sq mi) is water.

The largest airport in Finland, and the main airport and airline hub of Greater Helsinki, the Helsinki Airport, is located in Vantaa. Companies with headquarters in Vantaa include Finnair, Finavia,Air Finland,Blue1,R-kioski, Tikkurila Oyj, Veikkaus Oy, and Metsähallitus. The city also hosts a science center, Heureka.

The city of Vantaa is bilingual, both Finnish and Swedish being official languages. 88.6% of the population are Finnish speakers, while 3% speak Swedish as their first language. 8.4% of the population speak a native language other than Finnish or Swedish.

Finland

Finland (ⁱ/ˈfɪnlənd/; Finnish: Suomi [suomi]; Swedish: Finland [ˈfɪnland]), officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe, a peninsula with Gulf of Finland to the south and Gulf of Bothnia to the west. It has land borders with Sweden and Norway to the north and Russia to the east. Finland is part of the geographic region of Fennoscandia, which also includes Scandinavia and parts of Russia.

Finland's population is 5.5 million (2014), staying roughly on the same level with only about 9% increase in 24 years since the last economic depression in 1990. The majority live in the southern regions. The single largest group of foreigners living in Finland are Russians and Estonians, 36% of all of the foreigners (2014). In terms of area, it is the eighth largest country in Europe and the most sparsely populated country in the European Union. Finland is a parliamentary republic with a central government based in the capital Helsinki, local governments in 317 municipalities, and an autonomous region, the Åland Islands. Over 1.4 million people live in the Greater Helsinki metropolitan area, which produces a third of the country's GDP. Other large cities include Tampere, Turku, Oulu, Jyväskylä, Lahti, and Kuopio.

Helsinki Airport

Helsinki Airport or Helsinki-Vantaa Airport (IATA: HEL, ICAO: EFHK; Finnish: Helsinki-Vantaan lentoasema, Swedish: Helsingfors-Vanda flygplats) is the main international airport of the Helsinki metropolitan region and the whole of Finland with about 16 million passengers annually. It serves as the hub for Finnair, the Finnish flag carrier, as well as a base for Blue1, Norwegian Air Shuttle and Nordic Regional Airlines. The airport is located in the city of Vantaa, about 5 kilometres (3 mi) west of Tikkurila, the centre of Vantaa and 9.2 NM (17.0 km; 10.6 mi) north of Helsinki city center. Helsinki Airport is the leading long-haul airport in Northern Europe and a popular transfer point.

Overview

Originally built for the 1952 Summer Olympics in Helsinki, the airport nowadays is the fourth busiest airport in the Nordic countries, with 15,948,760 passengers having used the airport in 2014. This number makes up for 81% of the total number of passengers in Finland's 21 commercial airports combined (18,880,940). making it the busiest airport in Finland by far. It provides jobs for 20,000 people and there are 1,500 companies that operate at this airport. The airport is operated by Finavia, the state-owned enterprise that operates Finland's airports.