Tampere is a city in Pirkanmaa, southern Finland. It is the most populous inland city in the Nordic countries.
Tampere was founded as a market place on the banks of the Tammerkoski channel in 1775 by Gustav III of Sweden.
Tampere was granted full city rights, on 1 October 1779.
In 2007, Tampere switched to a new model of government. Since then, a mayor and four deputy mayors have been chosen for a period of two years by the city council. The mayor also becomes the seat of the city council for the duration of the tenure.
Tampere has two additional “friendship cities”: León, Nicaragua & Mwanza, Tanzania.
Finland’s largest glass sculpture, owned by the City of Tampere, “Pack Ice / The Mirror of the Sea” by the renowned artist Timo Sarpaneva, was installed in the entrance lobby of the downtown shopping mall KoskiKeskus until it was moved to a warehouse.
Tampere is also home to one of the last museums in the world dedicated to Vladimir Lenin.
Tampere ostensibly has a long-standing mutual feud with the city of Turku, the first capital of Finland. This hostility is largely expressed in-jokes in one city about the other; prominent targets are the traditional Tampere food, mustamakkara, the state of the Aura River in Turku, and the regional accents.
Three of these institutions, TUT, UTA, and TAMK are merging into a new Tampere University at the beginning of 2019.