Turku is Finland’s oldest town and reflects all phases of the country’s history, including Swedish and Russian rule, and a century of independence. The city has undergone transformations in each of these periods. Originally, Turku was the principal town in the eastern part of the Swedish realm called Finland and it became one of the most important towns in medieval and Early Modern Sweden. Today, only a few visible elements remind us of its medieval and Early Modern history. Instead, Turku appears like a city from the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, because large parts of it have been rebuilt according to modern ideas since the 1950s, after the destruction caused by World War II. Hence, today’s cityscape reflects the attitudes to the preservation of built heritage and the construction ideas of the post-war period. It commemorates only a selected part of a multilayered history. However, Turku’s long history has created its identity, which cannot be comprehended unless we understand the development of the town.

In this chapter, I outline the development of Turku with reference to archaeological, cartographical and historical evidence, and discuss the changes and main events that have transformed the appearance, structure, and functions of Turku from its establishment until the early nineteenth century. To present the long-term development in a concise way, we need to focus on the turning points and the main causes of the most significant changes with a large-scale impact on the development of the city in the long term. In order to understand the changes, we need to be aware of the main events and the role of Turku in the history of Finland.