What Is Helsinki Famous For?

Design, sauna, the sea fortress of Suomenlinna and an archipelago of about 330 islands. Those four come up in every conversation I have ever had with a visitor at the kiosk. Add the long summer light, the short dark winter, and a habit of building public things well — libraries, churches, ferries — and you have the city.

Sea fortressSuomenlinna, UNESCO since 1991

Islands in front of the cityAbout 330

Design namesMarimekko, Iittala, Arabia, Fiskars

Midsummer daylight18 hours 50 minutes on 21 June

Midwinter daylight6 hours on 21 December

Official languagesFinnish and Swedish

Design

Marimekko prints, Iittala and Arabia glass and ceramics, Fiskars, and a Design District that is an area of the city rather than a single shop. Finnish design is famous for being plain and for lasting, which is the same instinct that produces a church cut into rock and a central library with a terrace on it. What to actually take home is on the shopping page. Moomin things and Fazer's blue chocolate come home in more suitcases than any of it.

Sauna

Not a spa treatment here, an ordinary part of a week. There are public saunas around the city and on the water, and the thing that surprises visitors is the swim afterwards, which people do in cold water without ceremony. Lonna, about seven minutes out from Market Square, has a public sauna on it. The RIB tour is the one boat trip on this site that lands on an island for exactly that. Sauna and swimming explains how it works if you have never done it.

Suomenlinna and the sea

The fortress is the single most famous thing in Helsinki. Eight islands, six of them fortified, begun in 1748 under Swedish rule as Sveaborg, renamed Suomenlinna on 12 May 1918, UNESCO World Heritage since 1991, with about 900 permanent residents and the submarine Vesikko. In 2009 a record 713,000 people visited. The crossing takes 15 minutes on an ordinary city ticket from the eastern side of Market Square, in front of the Presidential Palace.

Behind it sits the archipelago: about 330 islands, the channels between them, and a city that treats boats as buses. That is the thing I would put on the postcard if it were up to me. The Suomenlinna page is the longer version.

The light

Helsinki is famous for summer nights that never go properly dark. White nights run roughly 12 May to 2 August, and midsummer gives 18 hours 50 minutes of daylight. The other half of that reputation is the winter: 6 hours on 21 December, and 1 to 2.5 hours of sunshine a day in January and February. Both facts are true about the same city and you should plan around whichever one you are getting.

Food and language

Lohikeitto, salmon soup with dill, is the dish visitors name afterwards. Karjalanpiirakka with egg butter, korvapuusti, rye bread, muikku, reindeer, cloudberries and salmiakki are the rest of the list — see the food page. About 53 % of people in Finland speak English, and signs and announcements in Helsinki are routinely in Finnish, Swedish and English.

Local tip

If you want the famous things in one day: ferry to Suomenlinna in the morning, Design District and a coffee in the afternoon, sauna in the evening. That is Helsinki's whole reputation in about nine hours.

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Frequently asked questions

What is Helsinki best known for?

Design, sauna, the Suomenlinna sea fortress and an archipelago of about 330 islands, plus very long summer days and very short winter ones.

Is Helsinki famous for anything on the water?

Suomenlinna above all. It has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1991 and is reached by a 15-minute public ferry from Market Square.

What food is Helsinki known for?

Lohikeitto, karjalanpiirakka, korvapuusti, rye bread and salmiakki. More on the Finnish food page.