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Turku/Åbo has a long history as Finland's largest city and administrative centre, but has, over the last two centuries, given up both titles to Helsinki. To this day, the city's identity stems from its status as the oldest city in Finland and the country's former capital. Originally, the word 'Finland' referred only to the area around Turku (hence the title, 'Finland Proper' for the region).
Although archaeological findings, dating back to the Stone Age, have been discovered, Turku/Åbo did not become a significant location until the late 13th century. The Finnish name Turku originates from and old Estonian word and means market place.The Swedish name of the city, Åbo, means a dwelling by the river. The Cathedral of Turku was consecrated in 1300, and together with Turku Castle and the Dominican monastery (founded in 1249), the city became the most important location in medieval Finland.
During the Middle Ages, Turku/Åbo was the seat of the Bishop of Turku (a title later upgraded to 'Archbishop of Turku'), covering all of Finland until the 17th century, and the only city in Finland to trade with the Hanseatic League. Even if Turku/Åbo had no official capital status, both the Dukes and Governors-General of Finland usually had their Finnish residences here. In 1640, the first university in Finland, Academia Aboensis, was founded in Turku/Åbo.
After the Finnish War, which ended when Sweden ceded Finland to Imperial Russia at the Treaty of Hamina in 1809, the capital was changed from Turku/Åbo to Helsinki, as Emperor Alexander I felt that Turku/Åbo was located too far from Russia to serve as the capital of the Grand Duchy. The change officially took place in 1812. The government offices that remained in Turku were finally moved to the new capital after the Great Fire of Turku, which almost completely destroyed the city in 1827. After the fire, a new and safer city plan was drawn up by German architect Carl Ludvig Engel, who had also designed the new capital, Helsinki. Turku/Åbo remained the largest city in Finland for another twenty years.
In 1918, a new university, the Åbo Akademi — the only Swedish-language university in Finland — was founded in Turku/Åbo. Two years later, the Finnish-language University of Turku was founded alongside it. These two universities were the second and third to be founded in Finland.
20th-century Turku/Åbo has been called "Finland's gateway to the West" by historians. The city enjoyed good connections with other Western European countries and cities, especially since the 1940s with Stockholm across the Gulf of Botnia. In the 1960s and 1970s, Turku displayed unprecedented rates of growth, resulting in the construction of many new densely-inhabited suburbs.