Kuopio

Kuopio stands on a peninsula in Lake Kallavesi, amid the waterways of northern Savolax. Its situation gave the settlement access to the extensive Saimaa system, while forests and farming districts surrounded the lake. A parish and church were established on Kuopionniemi in the 1550s, making the peninsula a centre for the people of the surrounding country.

In 1653 the Kajaani convention founded a town with the permission of the Swedish governor-general Per Brahe. This early town dwindled and lost its status during the crown's reduction in the 1680s. A new beginning came in 1775, when Gustav III ordered Kuopio established as the capital of Savo-Karjala province and the governor's residence. From the parish centre grew an administrative town serving a wide inland region.