Urban areas in Finland
# Urban areas in Finland

An urban area in Finland is defined as a cluster of dwellings with at least 200 inhabitants. The Finnish term for this is a taajama (Swedish: tätort). Because of the strict definition of a taajama, these areas exist both inside and outside of city and municipal borders.

The largest taajama in Finland is the Helsinki urban area with over 1.3 million inhabitants in 2019. It extends across Helsinki as well as ten other municipalities in the Greater Helsinki area. The second largest is the Tampere urban area with about 342,000 inhabitants in 2019, and the third largest is the Turku urban area with about 278,000 inhabitants in 2019.

The presence of taajama areas is used to regulate traffic, with a default of 50 kilometres per hour (31 mph) speed limit inside a taajama and 80 kilometres per hour (50 mph) outside. Each major road leading in or out of a taajama is marked with a road sign.

