Vantaa History, Finland

The history of the region is one that is somewhat dry in terms of the history books.  When you read about the history of Vantaa in history books they tend to be filled with a lot of meaningless facts and figures that really tell you nothing at all about the region in question.  Figures are important, but only when they are used in the context of making a larger point about the region.

For example, many of the historians will tell you that around the year 1800, Vantaa was a very small town with a population of 5000 people.  While this is definitely true, it is also important to consider this in a wider context.  Vantaa was not really a city in the same sense that it is today.  The people that were in the area around that time were mostly fishermen and the town itself was mostly a town that had nothing to do with cosmopolitan leanings and a lot to do with that basic fishing town mentality.

Over time of course, things began to change dramatically and by the turn of the century, the population had doubled to about 10,000 people with many changes in the economic prowess of the city beginning to manifest themselves in increased diversification and many other things as well.  By the time the 1980s rolled around, Vantaa had already gained the status of a full city in Finland (this happened in 1974) and the modern name of Vantaa had been ascribed to it where before there was no real means of identifying this particular region in Finland.  It was also around this time that people that worked in Helsinki started migrating outside of the city borders to live and one of the places they went to in droves was Vantaa.  It was for this reason that during the same decade, the population of Vantaa reached 100,000 people, ten times what it was at the start of the century.

That particular point in history is best described as a catalyst for everything else that went on in Vantaa, including the doubling of the population to 200,000 people that is expected to take place in the near future.  Speaking of the future however, Vantaa's future looks very bright indeed and all of the historical tradition it has brought forward since the original settlement of the land in the medieval period is still there in places for people to look at if they want to.