Uusikaupunki is a town and municipality of Finland.
It is located in the Southwest Finland region. The municipality has a population of 15,377 and covers an area of 551.65 square kilometres of which 49.04 km2 is inland water.
The municipality is unilingually Finnish. Both its Finnish and Swedish names translate literally to “new town”. The original name of the main village that was incorporated into Uusikaupunki was Kalainen (roughly translated from Finnish as “rich in fish”). The surrounding region, and especially the neighboring town of Kalanti, which merged with Uusikaupunki in 1993, was already a lively marketplace for wooden objects and salt in the early Middle Ages. Uusikaupunki was founded to legalize this trade.
Uusikaupunki is the home of Valmet Automotive, a contract automobile mechanical production company, producing cars and vehicles for brands such as Mercedes-Benz. It was founded in 1968 as Saab-Valmet for manufacturing Saab cars. As of June 2017, Valmet is assembling Mercedes-Benz A-Class and Mercedes-Benz GLC-Class cars.
Uusikaupunki is home to the Bonk museum.
Culture
Media
One of the city’s most significant newspapers is Uudenkaupungin Sanomat, which is published three times a week . The newspaper began to be published as early as 1890, making it one of the oldest newspapers in Finland. Other newspapers published in the city are Vakka-Suomen Sanomat and Vakka-Suomen Aluesanomat . Former newspapers in the city were the Swedish-speaking Nystads Tidning and Nya Tag .
There is also a local TV in Uusikaupunki, known as VakkaTV. It appears in about 8,000 households.
Religion
Pictured is the old church in Uusikaupunki , built in the 17th century.
Congregations
According to the 2018 regional division, Uusikaupunki has the following congregations of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland:
- New Town Parish
- Kalann Chapel Parish
- Lokalahti Chapel Parish
- Pyhämaa Chapel Congregation
- Uusikaupunki Chapel Parish
Former churches
The following list mentions the parishes that were abolished in historical time in the current area of Uusikaupunki.
- Kalanti Parish (attached to Uusikaupunki Parish 2009)
- Lokalahti Parish (attached to Uusikaupunki Parish 2009)
- Pyhämaa Parish (attached to Uusikaupunki Parish 2009)
- Uusikaupunki City Parish (merged with Uusikaupunki Rural Parish to become Uusikaupunki Parish 1969)
- Uusikaupunki Rural Parish (merged with Uusikaupunki City Parish to become Uusikaupunki Parish 1969)
Revival movements and other denominations
Church internal wake-up movements affect the locations of at least Pietism. The city’s cemetery and blessing chapel are located along the eastern entrance to Kalann, Pyhämaa and Lokalahti. In addition, the city houses a 19th-century Russian cemetery.
Other denominations represented Assemblies of God attributable to the new City Pentecostal church as well as Finnish Free Church belonging to the Uusikaupunki free church. Of the parishes of the Finnish Orthodox Church , the Turku Orthodox Parish operates in the Uusikaupunki area .
Music and Arts
The city is home to the Uusikaupunki Theater , which performs mainly at the Crusell Cultural Center . At its best, the theater attracted around 15,000 spectators in 2009. In addition, there are summer theaters in the city during the summer.
The most significant music events in Uusikaupunki are the rock festival Karjurock and Crusell Week . Crusell Week is held annually at the end of July. A music event dedicated to woodwinds will include an international musical competition for a woodwind. At the beginning of the summer, the city hosts Maritime Festivals , which are the opening of the summer season. At its best, festivals in the city center have had 15,000 visitors.
Notable painters born in the city include Robert Wilhelm Ekman and Arvid Liljelund .
Food culture
In the 1980s, the main dishes of Uusikaupunki were named herring potatoes ( salted lacquer and potatoes), barley croissant bran and potato sausage (potato sausage).
