The precise etymology of the name is unclear, however, one possible derivation is from a Sami word for "spruce forest".
The Swedish–Russian border had already been withdrawn east of Kuusamo in the 1595 Treaty of Teusina, but was long and porous. With the constant influx of new settlers, Kuusamo grew steadily in the 18th century. Agriculture, cattle and reindeer husbandry replaced nomadic cropping. Kuusamo around 1770 had about 2,000 inhabitants. In 1775 Kuusamo was removed from Lappmark and added to the newly formed province of Oulu . Because the population had increased, a new, larger church was built between 1797 and 1804. By the beginning of the 19th century the population had reached 3000 inhabitants, but a famine in 1803 and a smallpox epidemic the following year reduced the population again.
Russian domination
In 1809, Kuusamo, as with the rest of Finland, came under Russian rule. In the first half of the 19th century, the area was ravaged several times by devastating famine and epidemics. Kuusamo was spared by the catastrophic crop failure in 1867, and its population grew steadily thereafter. By 1886, 7,000 people inhabited the city; by 1894, that number grew to 8,000. With the advent of forestry at the end of the 19th century, workers moved into the area, so Kuusamo reached a population of 10,500 by 1910. In 1868, in Finland's administrative reform the parish of Kuusamo became a municipality.
Since independence
After the independence of Finland in 1917, the Russian border was closed and so Kuusamo was cut off from its hinterland. The forestry sector suffered as there was no more wood to raft from Kuusamo to the ports on the White Sea, Even the reindeer economy suffered as some of the herds remained on the Russian side of the border. Therefore between the wars agriculture developed as the most important part of the economy. By 1925 the
