Kaskinen (Swedish: Kaskö) is a Finnish city located on the west
coast of Ostrobothnia, on the island of Kaskinen. Kaskinen is the
smallest municipality in Finland using the name of a city in terms
of population and the second smallest in area. Kaskinen is also the
smallest municipality in the province of Ostrobothnia in terms of
population.
In the 18th century, a town plan based on a grid
pattern with long, straight and wide streets was drawn up for the
city, and the plan prepared for a clearly larger population than has
ever been settled there since. Thus, there are still many
undeveloped plots in the city, and the urban settlement hardly
extends beyond the original zoned area. Kaskinen is also popular for
wooden house construction.
The municipality is bilingual and
the majority of 64.1 per cent of the residents speak Finnish and
29.2 per cent speak Swedish. Foreigners make up 5.4 per cent of the
city’s population (2013).
The city of Kaskinen was founded in 1785 by Gustav
III, and is thus the second youngest Swedish-speaking city in
Ostrobothnia and the last city founded in Finland during the Swedish
rule. Kaskinen was a locally significant port even before this.
Merchant Johan Bladhilla and his family play a significant role
in the history of the city. Bladh moved from Vaasa to Benvik Farm
north of Kaskinen and worked hard in front of the city. Kaskinen at
the time had a good harbor, with a well-protected deep waterway and
good access to the open sea. By Bladh, a customs and loading dock
was established in the port. I signed the city’s founding
declaration two years after Bladh’s death.
Johan’s son,
Petter Johan Bladh, developed the city’s business community.
Benvik’s farm developed into a model space for trying new ideas.
Bladh built his own merchant ship, which traveled to many foreign
ports. The merchant fleets were destroyed during the Napoleonic Wars
and the Bladhi's wealth was destroyed during the Finnish War.
Benvik's farm was partially destroyed and Bladh was imprisoned.
Until the 19th century, fishing and trade were the most
important occupations. In the 20th century, a railway and a larger
port were built in the city, sawmilling, large boarding houses for
the shipment of sawn timber, other industry and a fish salting
plant. The Defense Forces operated in the city after the wars when
the Optical Department was located in the locality.
Metsä-Botnia's current Metsä-Fiber established a pulp mill in the
city in the 1970s. It changed the city greatly, as many
Finnish-speakers moved there and Swedish-speakers remained a
minority. M-real has a factory completed in the autumn of 2005 in
the city. On January 14, 2009, Botnia announced that it would close
the Kaskinen plant. In August 2013, Metsä Wood, part of the Metsä
Group, decided to close down its processing operations in Kaskinen
and lay off 60 employees.
In the 1980s, the city had a
KG-Line ferry connection to Gävle, Sweden. On 6 October 2008, the
Estonian Baltic Scandinavian Lines started regular services from
Kaskinen to Härnösand, Sweden, by the ro-ro cargo ship M / S
Gutella. The ferry connection was discontinued in early 2009.
In Kaskinen and Närpiö, the local government was voted on 18
November 2019. The Kaskinen council rejected the joint by 9 votes to
8.
The town was founded in 1785 on an island originally called Kaskinen. The older names of the island found in the documents are Kaskisöyen (1546), Casköö (1553), Kaskisöö (1573) and the later city of Kask, ie Kyperäsaari (1844). Although the oldest known written mention of the name Kaskinen for the city dates back to 1863, the Finnish name is original. This is also indicated by the fact that the old Swedish names of the island have the body of the name Kaskis, to which an explanatory remainder “ö” has been added, which means island. The most likely interpretation of the island’s original name is Kaskisaari. The island has therefore been cultivated in the early days.