Salo is a town and municipality of Finland.
It is located in the province of Western Finland and is part of the Finland Proper region. The municipality has a population of 54,876 (June 30, 2009) and covers an area of 2,168.38 square kilometres (837.22 sq mi) of which 181.46 km2 (70.06 sq mi) is water. The population density is 27.62 /km2 (71.5 /sq mi).
In Finnish salo means woodland, backwoods but also a wooded island. It is thought that Salo has meant the island that over thousand years ago existed to the South of the current town but is today a hill, not even very close to the sea.
The municipality is unilingually Finnish.
Salo has existed as a centre of rural commerce since at least the 16th century, grewn in the location where the Great Costal Road, the important East-West road, crossed River Salo; the river provided the fairway to the sea. In 1887 Salo officially became a market town and, in the beginning of 1891, an independent municipality. The area of the municipality was initially very small, only 0.65 km². In 1932 it grew to 18 km² when areas from neighbouring Uskela and Halikko were annexed to Salo. Eventually Salo became a town in 1960. Today its main claim to notability is as a developing and manufacturing plant for Nokia, and can therefore be considered as the original home town of Nokia phones. Nokia also is one of biggest employers in this region.
Salo is located between the capital Helsinki and the provincial capital Turku, making it a busy small city. The short distance from these bigger cities keeps the Salo region and its business life growing. Farming also plays a considerable part in the area.
The municipality of Uskela was consolidated with Salo 1967. The municipalities of Halikko, Kiikala, Kisko, Kuusjoki, Muurla, Perniö, Pertteli, Suomusjärvi and Särkisalo were consolidated with Salo in the beginning of 2009. |
