Private company

Forssa

Town in Kanta-Häme, Finland

Last updated Oct 21, 2026.

Overview

1923Founded¹

HeadquartersForssa, Finland¹
Websitewww.forssa.fi
Legal formmunicipality of Finland¹
Kind of organizationGovernment entity¹
LEI7437005J4HAOD2RE3T81³
StatusActive³
LEI statusIssued and current³
Registered addressTURUNTIE 18, FI-30100 Forssa, Finland³
Registered withFinnish Patent and Registration Office, 0145626-1³

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Forssa is a town and municipality of Finland. It is located almost in the centre of a triangle defined by the three largest major cities in Finland (Helsinki, Turku and Tampere), in the Kanta-Häme region, and which is crossed by Highway 2 between Pori and Helsinki and Highway 10 between Turku and Hämeenlinna. The town has a population of 16,307 (31 December 2025) and covers an area of 253.38 square kilometres (97.83 sq mi) of which 4.61 km2 (1.78 sq mi) is water. The population density is 65.53 inhabitants per square kilometre (169.7/sq mi). Only a little part of the surface area of Forssa is water, but the river Loimijoki forms an important element in the cityscape, with the city being located at its starting point. Other notable water areas in Forssa include the lake Kaukjärvi and the lake Koijärvi, known as the birthplace of the Green League.²

Corporate structure

Forssa sits at the top of its group. 3 entities, 1 country on record. Switch between the flow chart and the network, and select any entity to see its details.

Forssa Forssa, Finland
- Forssa-asunnot Oy Subsidiary · 100% · Forssa, Finland
- Forssan Yrityskehitys Oy Subsidiary · 100% · Forssa, Finland

Built from parent and subsidiary links from GLEIF, the Global Legal Entity Identifier Foundation (CC0). Each entity in the chart links to its source.

The story

The development of Forssa into an industrial conurbation started when industrialist Axel Wilhelm Wahren founded a spinning mill on the shore of the river Loimijoki in 1847. Today the Forssa industrial community has been classified as a notable constructed cultural environment in Finland.

In 1903 a party meeting of the Finnish Workers' Party, known as the Forssa meeting, was held in Forssa, where the party was renamed as the Social Democratic Party of Finland and a new party program was accepted into use.

Forssa only became an independent municipality in 1923 when it was separated from the municipality of Tammela into its own market town. Forssa received city privileges in 1964. The depression in the early 1990s had a large impact on Forssa, resulting in economic problems and an unemployment rate that still remains high today.

Coat of arms

The current coat of arms of Forssa was designed by Olof Eriksson in 1962. Its heraldic description reads: A silver waterwheel on a blue shield. The coat of arms depicts water power and the river Loimijoki running through the city. The coat of arms was taken into use on 29 August 1962.

The former coat of arms of Forssa was designed by Arne Wilhelm Rancken in 1947. The coat of arms had a wavy division with a silver waterwheel on a blue background at the bottom part, and three blue wavy lines and a red letter F on a silver background at the top part. This coat of arms was later discontinued as unheraldic.

From Wikipedia’s article on Forssa, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.⁴

Products and brands

Forssa market town area

Villages located in the Forssa market town area were:

Haudankorva (401)

Järvenpää (402)

Kuhala (405)

Read the full text

Kuusto (406)

Linikkala (408)

Lunttila (409)

Talsoila (413)

Vieremä (414)

Inconsistencies with the municipal division

The area of the former market town of Forssa also contains parts of the villages of Jokioinen (415) and Kaukjärvi (416), but these villages are mainly located in the neighbouring municipalities of Jokioinen and Tammela. However, Tammela also contains parts of the villages of Haudankorva, Linikkala and Lunttila, but these villages are mainly located in Forssa.

Likewise, of the villages located in the former municipality of Koijärvi, Kojo is partly located in Tammela and Matku is partly located in Urjala. In the annexation, the village of Kojo was mainly annexed to Urjala and the village of Menonen is also partly located in Urjala.

Business

Employment structure

In 2009 Forssa had 8,724 jobs, which were divided among the business sectors as follows:

agriculture and forestry: 184 (2.1%)

secondary sector: 2,953 (33.8%)

services: 5,530 (63.4%)

unknown: 57 (0.7%)

The secondary sector of the economy is still a significant business, but its proportion of the jobs has decreased noticeably. The proportion of the secondary sector was at its highest at 55.7% in 1975. The total number of jobs in Forssa had also decreased, the number of jobs was at its highest at 11,000 in 1990. During the early 1990s depression in Finland, the city lost about 2,000 jobs by 1995. Agriculture is practised in Forssa mainly in the area of the former municipality of Koijärvi.

The textile industry started by Wahren in the 19th century was the largest employer in the city up to the 1970s. After this, the construction industry rose to the largest industry thanks to the increase of activity of the company Rakennusvalmiste Oy founded by Armas Puolimatka. The third mineral wool factory of A. Ahlström (now known as Saint-Gobain Isover) was officially inaugurated at Pilvenmäki on 13 Octobner 1971. The factory had been undergoing test runs for a month before this.

Today the food industry is the largest industry in Forssa. HK Ruokatalo Oy has concentrated a large part of its activity in Forssa. The company Atria also has activities in the city after it bought the local company Liha ja Säilyke. The product label Forssan still remains on the market. The meat refinery company Hakala Oy represents the local food industry.

Largest companies

Notable employers in Forssa include:

the city of Forssa

HKScan

Atria

Punamusta

Parma

Parmarine

Saint-Gobain Isover

Vansco Electronics

Tambest Glass Solutions

DA-Group

Aste Finland

the wellbeing consortium of the Forssa region (FSHKY)

Employment situation

Forssa has traditionally been self-sufficient in employment. According to a 2009 statistic, the self-sufficiency rate was 125.5%. There are 3,444 outside people employed in Forssa, of which 2,299 are from the Forssa region and 1,145 from elsewhere. 39.5% of the jobs employ people living outside Forssa. According to a 2009 statistics 6,950 people from Forssa were employed. The most of them were employed in Forssa and 1,670 were employed elsewhere. Of the people employed outside Forssa, 737 people were employed in the Forssa region and 933 elsewhere in Finland. Thus 24.0% of the employed people in Forssa were employed outside their home city.

In 1990 the unemployment rate in Forssa was only 5.2%. During the following years, employment increased rapidly, coming to its highest in 1993. At the time a quarter of the people were unemployed. After this employment started to decrease, but increased again in 2008. Even at its lowest, the employment rate in Forssa was about twice as high as before the early 1990s depression. In 2018 the unemployment rate in Forssa was 12.8%, the highest in Kanta-Häme. The unemployment rate has been decreasing since 2016. The unemployment situation in Forssa is more serious than in Kanta-Häme or the Hämeenlinna and Riihimäki regions.

The Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment named Forssa as an area of sudden structure change from 2008 to 2009 because of layoffs concerning over 500 employees. This was because of layoffs in the following companies:

Finlayson-Forssa announced layoffs and closed its unprofitable plastic factory in 2007. In 2008 the company went bankrupt.

Helkama Forste closed its factory in Forssa in 2008, moving production to Hungary and Russia.

In October 2008 Novart closed its kitchen utensil factory in Forssa, concentrating production in Nastola.

Other layoffs in the past years have included:

The Vapo Timber sawmill in Forssa closed in 2006.

The food industry companies HK Ruokatalo and Atria have laid some of their workers off.

Finlayson closed its Forssa factory in March 2009.

In August 2012 Fenestra closed its window factory in Forssa.

Other services

Forssa belongs to the service area of the Rescue Department of Kanta-Häme and has a fire station staffed by a permanent fire brigade. The same fire station also hosts the Forssa semi-permanent fire brigade. There are three voluntary fire brigades in Forssa: Forssan VPK, Matkun VPK and Suonpään VPK.