Korsholm

Korsholm was a centre of Swedish authority on the eastern shore of the Gulf of Bothnia. Its castle, also called Chrysseborg, was built in the fourteenth century amid an archipelago whose shores have since risen from the sea. From here officials administered a vast district of Ostrobothnia; Bo Jonsson Grip was among the castle's early holders.

In the 1550s Gustav Vasa established a royal farm in the parish. King Charles IX founded a town at the old harbour and church village in 1606, later naming it Vaasa for the royal house. Trade, especially in tar, enriched its merchants in the seventeenth century. In 1776 Gustav III founded a court of appeal in the town; its new building was completed ten years later.