Sipoo (Swedish: Sibbo) is a municipality in the Helsinki region
of Uusimaa. Sipoo's neighboring municipalities are Helsinki, Vantaa,
Kerava, Tuusula and Järvenpää in the west, Porvoo and Pornainen in
the east and Mäntsälä in the north. The municipality has 21,488
inhabitants and covers an area of 698.60 km², of which 339.70 km²
is land and the remaining 3.01 km² is inland water areas. Sipoo is
part of the Helsinki metropolitan area.
The municipality is
bilingual. 63 per cent of the residents state Finnish and 33 per
cent Swedish as their mother tongue.
At the beginning of
2009, an area of approximately 30 square kilometers was
transferred from Sipoo to Helsinki. The transferred area includes
Östersundom, Karhusaari and Landbo, among others.
There are
popular summer islands off the coast of Sipoo, the largest of which
are Löparö, Norrkullalandet, Simsalö and Kaunissaari (Swedish:
Fagerö). The settlement focuses on the municipality's small towns
(Box, Martinkylä, Söderkulla, Talma and Västerskog) and Nikkilä. The
population of Sipoo has increased in the 1980s and 1990s due to
migration in the Helsinki metropolitan area. However, the residents'
employment is mainly directed to Helsinki.
Sipoo joined the
HSL area on 1 January 2012, so the travel card used in Helsinki,
Vantaa, Espoo, Kauniainen, Kerava and Kirkkonummi is also valid for
Sipoo bus traffic.
The planned eastern extension of the
Helsinki metro from Mellunmäki would initially be extended to Sipoo
Majvik and possibly to Sipoonlinna.