Helsinki

The northernmost capital of any EU member state, and the world’s northernmost metropolitan area holding over a million people, which is the fact that explains the light here, and the winters. It stands on the Gulf of Finland, eighty kilometres from Tallinn, four hundred from Stockholm, three hundred from Saint Petersburg, and the pull of all three shows in the city. About 694,000 people live in the municipality and 1.6 million in the metropolitan area. It is bilingual, Finnish and Swedish both official, and until about 1930 English-speakers knew it by its Swedish name, Helsingfors.