Helsinki City Urban Facts, 2011.
Foreign-born residents to double
The Helsinki region is home to half of all foreign-born people in Finland. A recent demographic forecast for the Helsinki region projects that in 2030 the region will be home to nearly 300,000 people who speak some other language than Finnish or Swedish as their first language or who are considered foreign-born in other respects.
The forecast projects that the share of foreign-born people in Helsinki will rise from the current 12 percent to 21 percent, representing 146,000 in 2030. In the region, their share will grow from the current 9 percent to 18 percent.
The number of foreign-born residents has doubled in the Helsinki region during the 21 century. On an international comparison, however, the share of foreign-born residents in the region is fairly low. For example in Stockholm, which started to receive large numbers of immigrants decades before Helsinki, their share is 27 percent.
The most common mother tongues other than Finnish or Swedish among Helsinki residents are Russian, Estonian, West European languages and Somali. In the future the amount of representatives of African, Middle-Eastern and Asian languages is expected to increase.
The demographic forecast on the Helsinki region’s foreign-born population was prepared by the data administrations of the City of Helsinki and its neighbors the Cities of Espoo and Vantaa.