Sipoo

Sipoo (pronounced|ˈsipoː) in Finnish or Sibbo in Swedish is a municipality of Finland. Its seat is in "Nikkilä" / "Nickby" (postal code 04130).It is the eastern neighbour of Helsinki and is located in the province of Southern Finland and ispart of the Eastern Uusimaa region. The municipality has a population of 19,609 (2008-05-31) and covers an area of 366.75 km² of which 2.65 km² is water. The population density is 51 inhabitants per km².

The once almost completely Swedish speaking municipality is since 1953 bilingual, a majority being Finnish speakers since 2003, due to migration from other parts of Finland. Today the Finnish speaking majority stands for ca 58% and the Swedish speaking minority for about 40% of the population.

On June 26, 2006, the Sipoo town council decided on a strategy to triple the municipality's population over the next 25 years. The decision was made after Helsinki announced plans to annex a part of the municipality in order to respond to population growth pressures. The Finnish state council voted in favour of the annexation on June 28, 2007, with votes 8 to 4.As Helsinki does not directly border Sipoo at any point, the municipality of Vantaa will cede the area lying between Helsinki and Sipoo to Helsinki in the process. The annexation will take place on January 1, 2009, [ [http://www.yle.fi/uutiset/kotimaa/id63643.html YLE uutiset / Kotimaa ] ] but Sipoo has disputed this and taken the matter to the Supreme Administrative Court.

Twin towns

*flagicon|Norway Aurskog-Høland, Norway
*flagicon|Denmark Frederikssund, Denmark
*flagicon|Sweden Kumla, Sweden
*flagicon|Estonia Kuusalu, Estonia

See also

* Sibbesborg

References

External links

* [http://www.sipoo.fi/ - Official website]
* [http://www.nbl.fi/~nbl1560/sibbopics.html - Pictures]
* [http://sibbo.kartan.info/Sipoo_kartta.html - Sipoon kartta]