Forssa is a city in southwestern Hämälä, Finland, located in the
western part of Kanta-Häme province. The city of Forssa has a population
of approximately 16,000 and the entire region has a population of
approximately 31,000. Forssa is the 67th largest city in Finland by
population. Of the three cities in Kanta-Häme, Forssa is the smallest.
Forssa is the center of its sub-district. Forssa's neighboring
municipalities are Jokioinen to the west, Tammela to the east and south,
and Humppila and Urjala to the north. The population is concentrated in
the Forssa central district in the southern part of the city's
administrative area, which also extends into the municipalities of
Jokioinen and Tammela. In the northern parts of the city, in the area of
the former Koijärvi municipality, there is sparse rural settlement.
Forssa has an area of 253.36 square kilometers and an average
population density of approximately 66 inhabitants per square kilometer.
The proportion of water bodies in the area is small, but an important
element in the cityscape is the Loimijoki River, at the head of which
the city is located. Other significant water bodies include Kaukjärvi,
which is partly located in Forssa, and Koijärvi, known as the birthplace
of the green movement.
Forssa grew and developed in the 19th
century with the growth of the textile industry. In the 20th century,
the city barely grew at all between the world wars. A new period of
growth began in the 1960s, driven by the construction industry. Forssa's
population peaked in the mid-1980s, when the city had just over 20,000
inhabitants for two years. Since then, the city's growth has stopped as
industry has begun to scale back its operations. By 1994, the population
had decreased by a few hundred, but after that the population decline
accelerated. By the end of 2005, Forssa had lost over 2,000 inhabitants
compared to its peak years. In 2008, the city's population grew for the
first time since 1993. After 2010, the population has decreased again,
reaching approximately 17,300 in 2016. Today, the food industry is a
significant employer.
Forssa's location in the middle of the
Helsinki-Turku-Tampere triangle is sometimes considered ideal, as it
allows for quick travel to the country's largest cities. The distance to
Helsinki is 110 kilometers, to Tampere 87 kilometers, and to Turku 88
kilometers.
Forssa's development into an industrial settlement began when the
industrialist Axel Wilhelm Wahren founded a spinning mill on the
Loimijoki River in 1847. Today, the Forssa industrial community is
defined as one of Finland's nationally significant built cultural
environments.
In 1903, the Finnish Labour Party party congress,
the so-called Forssa congress, was held in Forssa, where the new name
Finnish Social Democratic Party was adopted and a new party program was
approved.
Forssa was established as an independent municipality
in 1923, when it was separated from the municipality of Tammela to form
its own township. Forssa received city rights in 1964. The recession of
the early 1990s hit Forssa hard, resulting in economic problems and
still high unemployment.
The city's current coat of arms was designed by Olof Eriksson in
1962. Its heraldic explanation is: On a blue field, a silver water
wheel. The emblem depicts hydropower and the Loimijoki River flowing
through the city. The coat of arms was confirmed on 29 August 1962.
Previously, the coat of arms designed by A. W. Rancken from 1947 was
in use. The shield of the coat of arms was wavy, with a silver water
wheel in the lower blue field, and three blue wavy lines on top of the
wavy lines in the upper silver field, with a red letter F above them.
The coat of arms was discontinued as unheraldic.
The population development of Forssa between 1847 and 1990 has been
examined in the yearbook of the Southwest Häme Homeland and Museum
Association from 1995 and in the book History of Forssa written by Risto
O. Peltovuori, published in 1993. After independence in 1923, the
population of Forssa in 1925 was 7,681. The population development was
modest until 1945; then there were 8,045 inhabitants. After this, the
population growth accelerated: 9,000 inhabitants were exceeded in 1952,
10,000 inhabitants in 1957, 11,000 inhabitants in 1962, 12,000
inhabitants in 1966 and in 1968, 13,157 inhabitants exceeded the 13,000
mark. The annexation of Koijärvi to Forssa in the following year, 1969,
increased the population to over 15,000. In 1971, the 9 square kilometer
area of Lempää from Tammela was annexed to Forssa, which brought the
city about a hundred new residents.
Forssa grew rapidly in the
1970s, but the city's growth stopped in the mid-1980s. At its peak, the
city's population was 20,074 people at the end of 1985. After the
mid-1990s, the population of the city and the entire region began to
decline rapidly. In 2005–2010, the population stabilized at around
17,900, but then began to decline again, reaching around 17,300 at the
end of 2016.
90 percent of Forssa's population lives in an urban
area, in the central part of Forssa, where the population is most dense.
In rural areas in the central and northern parts of Forssa, both the
population and population density remain low. The central settlement of
Forssa also extends into the municipalities of Jokioinen and Tammela.
Forssa accounts for slightly more than half of the population of the
entire region.
The population centres of the Forssa factory
community were the Kalliomäki wooden house area on the north side of the
Loimijoki River and the Vanha Kuhala, Uudenkylä and Yliskylä wooden
house areas on the south side of the river. New districts have been
built around this historical centre of Forssa over the decades. The
Viksberg apartment block was built mainly in the 1970s and Tölö in the
1970s and 1980s, but their population has been declining. Recently, the
population has grown mainly due to the construction of new detached
houses on the outskirts of the city and the revival of apartment
building construction in the city centre.
At the end of 2011,
13.5 percent of Forssa's residents were aged 0–14, 63.2 percent were
aged 15–64, and 23.3 percent were over 64. In the long term, the number
and proportion of children have decreased considerably. The elderly are
the only age group that is growing in both number and proportion. The
proportion of children fell below the proportion of the elderly in 1997.
Most children live on the edge of the central urban area in new
single-family housing areas. The proportion of the elderly is highest in
Korkeavaha and the City Centre, where over 40% of the residents are over
64.
Between 1980 and 2010, the language distribution in Forssa
has remained fairly stable. The absolute number of Finnish speakers has
decreased by approximately 1,900 people, but the relative proportion has
decreased only slightly from 99.6 percent to 97.1 percent. The number of
Swedish speakers has decreased by about a third. The most significant
growth is in the group of people who speak languages other than
Finnish and Swedish, whose size has multiplied.
At the end of 2023, 70.9 percent of Forssa residents belonged to the
Evangelical Lutheran Church, 2.3 percent belonged to other religions and
26.8 percent did not belong to any religion.
According to the
2018 regional division, Forssa is home to the Forssa congregation of the
Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland. The former Koijärvi congregation
was merged into the Forssa congregation in 2007. The city is home to the
Hämeenlinna Orthodox Church's activity center, a Kingdom Hall of
Jehovah's Witnesses, the Saalem Church of the Pentecostal Church, and
the activities of the Free Church. The Free Church operates in a
building known as the Club, built by the Forssa company. There is also a
cemetery for freethinkers in Forssa.
The member congregations of
the Pentecostal Church of Finland in Forssa are the Forssa Pentecostal
Congregation and the member congregations of the Free Church are the
Forssa Free Congregation.
The first planned areas of Forssa were Wahreninkatu and Viksbergin
pytingit. Kalliomäki and its lines were created from the 1870s after
Wahren prescribed a town plan for the area. In addition to Kalliomäki,
the oldest residential areas of Forssa include Vanha Kuhala on the south
side of Loimijoki, Uusikylä between Rautatienkatu and Räynynoja, and
Yliskylä, or Ameriikka, slightly west of Uusekylä.
In a study by
Helga Keränen from 1930, the then Forssa township is divided into ten
physiognomic areas, which were the Kalliomäki area, the Hämeentie large
residential area, the Puisto area, the Forssa factory area, the Viksberg
factory area, the Forssa business center, the Keski-Forssa small
residential area, “Amerikka” and the Yliskylä new residential area. This
division only applied to the densely built-up areas of Forssa, and not
to the more rural areas around it.
By 1946, the area of dense
wooden housing was quite small compared to the size of today's urbanized
area. Most of the current residential areas were fields. In addition to
the areas mentioned above, there was housing in Kekkala, some in
Pispanmäki and some buildings on the lands of the Viksberg Manor.
Construction of Rantalanmäki had already begun at this stage.
Apartment buildings began to be built around Kartanonkatu and Forssa
Market Square, as well as in Viksberg in the 1960s. Many old wooden
houses were gradually replaced by new construction. The demolition of
many buildings has been criticized since then. Perhaps the most famous
building to be demolished is the Piparkakkutalo, located on the corner
of Säästöpankinkatu and Hämeentie. The construction of apartment
buildings continued in the 1970s, when construction of Tölö began,
red-brick apartment buildings were built on Pekolanraitti, and
construction of Viksberg continued.
The city's expanding industry
gained access to the former Viksberg manor lands. Parma built its
element and Ahlström wool factories on the west side of Highway 2 in
Pispanmäki.
Single-family housing areas gradually spread to the
edges of the city. After Talsoila, single-family homes were built in the
north in Lamminranta, Ojalanmäki, Kaikula, and Vieremä. Construction of
Paavola began in the 1980s, and the area is now almost fully built out.
A housing fair was also held in Paavola in 1982.
The expansion of Forssa has been quite slow, because with the population declining, the demand for new homes is not very high. However, new single-family homes have been built. The most new houses are in the eastern parts of the city in Kuusto, to some extent also in Pikkumuola and Paavola and in the northwestern part of Vieremä. In the last couple of years, new apartment buildings have been built in the city centre, especially in Makasiiniranta.
Only 4.61 km² of the area of Forssa is covered by water bodies,
which is 1.8% of the total area. The only water bodies in the city
centre area are part of Kaukjärvi in the east, the Loimijoki River
flowing through the city, the almost overgrown Loimalammi flowing into
it, and the Linikkalanlammi in Linikkalala and Mäkilammi in Vieremä. The
largest lake in the nearby area is Pyhäjärvi on the Tammela side.
The central parts of the sparsely populated area of Forssa are
crossed by the Loimijoki tributary Jänhijoki, whose headwaters also
include Kiimalammi and Luolalammi, which are located further north near
the Tammela border and are connected to the chain of small forest lakes
in the hinterland of Tammela's Mustiala.
In the northern part of
the sparsely populated area is the Koijärvi bird lake. From there begins
the largest tributary of the Loimijoki River, Koijoki (also known as
Kojonjoki or Koenjoki), which flows west past Matku along the border of
Jokioinen and Humppila. The other headwater lake of this river is
Valijärvi on the border of Tammela. The headwaters of Tammela's
Pyhäjärvi include Lunkinjärvi on the border of Tammela. On the borders
of Urjala, the headwaters of the Tarpianjoki River, which flows through
Urjala, partly extending into the Forssa area, include Kokonjärvi,
Särkijärvi and Matkunjärvi.
There are 110 parks in Forssa, covering a total area of 303
hectares. The most significant parks are listed below:
Ankkalammi
Park: located south of the market square. The park was renovated in
connection with the market renovation
Yhtiönpuisto: a park located
next to the old spinning mill area, sometimes also called Wahreninpuisto
Keskuspuisto: the next natural park on the banks of the Loimijoki River
after Yhtiönpuisto, which also has a football pitch
Talsoila puisto:
a partly built, partly natural park in Talsoila, implemented as a public
park open to everyone, unlike the previously closed Yhtiönpuisto
Rantapuisto: a park located along the river in Rantalanmäki opposite the
Central Park
Harjupuisto: a pine-dominated park forest on the border
of Kaikula and Vieremä
Mäkilamminpuisto: a pine-dominated park forest
bordering Mäkilammi in Vieremä
Lamminranta puisto: as its name
suggests, a park around Lamminranta
Paavola puisto: a park located in
the Paavola district is partly built, partly park forest
Siurila
puisto: a park located in the middle of the Viksberg residential area,
with two water ponds, artificial stream and fountain
Salmistonmäki
and Loimalammi: a natural area located in the eastern part of
Haudankorva, right on the border of Tammela
Many parks are mainly
green areas in a natural state, and not actively managed "parade parks".
The city of Forssa is built in an area where forest and field
landscapes alternate. The city has been granted national urban park
status for three areas located along the Loimijoki River.
The
agrarian landscape area is the field areas of Haudankorva and Kuusto
The industrial heritage area is the old factory buildings and some old
city districts (including Kalliomäki, Kuhala and Rantalanmäki)
The
ridge area is the Hunnari area in Vieremä, the area around the cemetery
in Kaikula and the area around the pond in Lamminranta.
The following roads pass through the Forssa city centre:
Highway 2
from Helsinki to Pori
Highway 10 from Turku to Hämeenlinna
Regional road 282 from Somero to Forssa
Regional road 284 from Urjala
via Koijärvi Church to Forssa
Connection road 2804 from the centre of
Jokioinen to Forssa (street name Jokioistentie in Forssa)
Connection
road 2821 from the centre of Tammela to Forssa (street name Tammelantie;
also known as Tammelansuora).
The poor condition of Highway 2 has
been considered a factor slowing down the development of Forssa.
According to whom? Highways originating in Helsinki have been converted
into motorways, but Highway 2, which has lower traffic volumes, is still
a conventional two-lane highway. The second road was improved near
Forssa in 2006–2009 by building a new bridge to Paavola and a bypass
lane to Jokioinen, which also serves as an alternate landing site for
the Air Force.
The Turku–Toijala railway runs through Matku, but
trains no longer stop at Matku, and the old station building has also
been demolished. The railway structures in the central area of Forssa
were demolished in the 1970s, and the city therefore does not have its
own railway connections. The nearest passenger station is in Humppila.
Sometimes, the construction of a railway in the city has been proposed.
For example, a railway from Helsinki via Forssa and Humppila to Pori has
been proposed. However, the project can not be implemented until the
second half of the 2020s at the earliest. Another policy has been
proposed to build a railway from Riihimäki via Forssa to Loimaa.
The Forssa airport, which is used for recreational activities, is
located in the Haudankorva district. The nearest airports for air travel
are in Helsinki, Tampere and Turku.
Traffic in the city centre has been considered problematic in Forssa.
For example, a ban on heavy vehicles was imposed on Kauppakatu in early
2008. Plans have long been in the works for the so-called Eastern Ring
Road, which would direct traffic past the city centre from Highway 2 to
Highway 10 and possibly from there to Tampereentie. As part of this
plan, Loimalammintie was completed as the city's new entrance road from
the south, and the Helsingintie junction to Highway 2, which had
previously served as an entrance road, was removed.
The
construction of an extension of Yhtiöankatu from the end of the current
Yhtiöankatu to the end of Tampereentie, past the church, along Line I,
has been planned for decades. The street alignment was marked in the
local plan in 1969, and the new regional plan also includes a street
connection between Yhtiöankatu and Tampereentie. The local plan is
considered outdated, and its renewal has been discussed frequently.
There has been support for both various solutions for implementing the
road connection and for not building the street. The project has been
highly controversial, and has sometimes been the subject of much
discussion on the opinion pages of Forssa Lehti. The Hämeenlinna
Administrative Court rejected the plan for the area that included the
street, and Forssa appealed the Administrative Court's decision, but the
Supreme Administrative Court rejected the appeal.
The renovation
of Kartanonkatu was also planned for a long time. The renovation work on
the street started in July 2012 and was completed at the end of the same
year. However, the failed speed bumps were repaired several times.