Espoo is the second largest city and municipality in Finland. The population of the city of Espoo is 255,508 (30 September 2012). It is part of the Capital region and most of its population lives in inner urban core of Helsinki metropolitan area, along with the cities of Helsinki, Vantaa, and Kauniainen. Espoo shares its eastern border with Helsinki and Vantaa, while enclosing Kauniainen. Espoo is the only municipality in Finland to fully enclose another municipality. The city is on the shore of the Gulf of Finland, in the region of Uusimaa.
Other bordering municipalities of Espoo are Nurmijärvi and Vihti in the north and Kirkkonummi in the west. The national park of Nuuksio is situated in northwest Espoo.
Espoo encompasses 528 square kilometres (204 sq mi), of which 312 km 2(120 sq mi) is land.
Espoo has several local regional centers. Espoo is thus divided into seven major areas (Finnish: suuralueet, Swedish: storområden): Vanha-Espoo (with administrative center), Suur-Espoonlahti, Pohjois-Espoo, Suur-Kauklahti, Suur-Leppävaara, Suur-Matinkylä and Suur-Tapiola.
Aalto University is based in Otaniemi, Espoo, along with a thriving science community that includes numerous startups and organizations such as VTT – the Technical Research Center of Finland. Nokia, the telecommunications company, is headquartered in Keilaniemi, Espoo, along with other high-tech companies such as KONE, Tekla and Fortum.
The city of Espoo is officially bilingual. The majority of the population, 83.6%, speaks Finnish as their mother tongue, while a minority of 8.3% speaks Swedish. 8% of Espoo's population has a first language other than Finnish or Swedish
