Tikkurila

Like Espoo, Vantaa is basically an extension of Helsinki, despite having a huge population by Finnish measures. It does not have a proper city centre: Vantaa's administrative centre is in the district of Tikkurila (Swedish: Dickursby), and other districts that can be considered local "centres" are Myyrmäki (Swedish: Myrbacka) in the west, Kivistö in the north-west and Korso in the north-east.

Quite few of the inhabitants have any connections to the rural landscapes and villages left from the old Helsinge (renamed Vantaa in 1972). Best known as the city where Helsinki's airport is located, you will also find various parks and farms you can visit there, as well as the beautiful medieval Church of St. Lawrence and a couple of interesting museums, notably the science centre Heureka. Depending on your interests, also the complex of the Jumbo mall and Flamingo hotel and entertainment centre can keep you busy for a couple of hours at least.

Helsinki Airport, located in the middle of northern Vantaa, takes up a large part of the city's area and effectively splits the rest of Vantaa in two parts, the Myyrmäki-Martinlaakso area in the west and the Tikkurila area in the east. The Ring Rail (Finnish: Kehärata) railway line connects all three areas together with the neighbouring city of Helsinki.

Local information:

City of Vantaa website

By plane:

The city is indeed accessible by air, as Finland's main airport is in Vantaa:

1 Helsinki Airport (HEL IATA)

There are buses from the airport to different parts of Vantaa, or you can take the commuter train to the public transport traffic hubs Tikkurila (for eastern Vantaa) or Myyrmäki (for western Vantaa).

By train:

The main railway north from Helsinki goes through eastern Vantaa. In addition to several local train stations, all long distance trains to the north and east, including the ones to Russia, stop at 2 Tikkurila Railway Station. . If you are heading for the western parts of Vantaa, you can take the local train line "I", which stops at 3 Myyrmäki Railway Station. and also continues to Helsinki–Vantaa Airport via 4 Kivistö Railway Station. .

By car:

Highways 3, 4 (E75), 45 and 7 out of Helsinki go through Vantaa and the main east-western road is the third Helsinki ring road (Kehä III), which is mostly part of the E18 route. In the morning and afternoon rush hours traffic on it can get quite busy and in the winter a heavy snowfall or a larger accident due to the often over-frozen road surface can block the traffic completely.

By bus:

From Helsinki several local buses go to Vantaa, and there are some lines directly from Espoo too. The Journey Planner of the Helsinki region public transport authority (HSL) is an excellent tool to find out which bus you should take from one address to another. Some larger cities in southern Finland also have a direct connection to Helsinki airport.