Municipalities of Finland - History

History

Municipalities were originally parishes. The old word for a municipality is pitäjä, 'keeper', because when the system was instituted, one municipality kept one minister. Municipalities were divided into villages, which consisted of individual properties. Borders between properties and thus municipalities were defined by oral agreements passed down from generation to generation; usually along straight lines between defined markers such as boulders. Medieval documentation survives only from legal disputes concerning borders. Furthermore, the secular government divided the properties to taxable units (villages and secular municipalities) according to its own convenience; thus, they not necessarily convergent with parishes. Furthermore, cities were chartered separately. Until 1977 municipalities were divided into cities (kaupunki, stad), market towns (kauppala, köping) and rural municipalities (maalaiskunta, landskommun). The market towns were abolished and renamed as cities. The rest of the municipalities were classified as 'other municipalities'. All municipalities called maalaiskunta were eventually either merged to their parent cities or changed their names. From 1995 onwards only 'municipality' is recognized by law and any municipality is allowed to call itself a city if it so wishes.