Hämeenlinna

A regional centre since the days when this was the heart of the historic province of Häme, standing on the shore of Lake Vanajavesi with the medieval castle beside it. Jean Sibelius was born here, and so was the designer Antti Nurmesniemi. Helsinki is ninety-eight kilometres away, Tampere seventy-three, Lahti seventy-two, which puts the town squarely in the middle of southern Finland. It was the seat of the Governor of Southern Finland until 2010. The coat of arms derives from a seventeenth-century town seal that itself refers to the castle.