Lahti

Lahti (Swedish: Lahtis) is a city and municipality in Finland.

Lahti is the capital of the Päijänne Tavastia region. It is situated on a bay at the southern end of lake Vesijärvi about 100 kilometres (60 mi) north-east of the capital Helsinki. In English, the Finnish word Lahti literally means bay and Vesijärvi means water lake.

The symbol of the city depicts a train wheel surrounded by sparkling flames.

The economic region of Lahti, which includes the surrounding municipalities, was strongly affected by the collapse of Finnish-Soviet trade and by the recession in the early 1990s.

The value of production slumped, especially in the mechanical engineering industry and other manufacturing industries (e.g. the furniture industry). Production also decreased in the textile and clothing industry. In 1990, there were 90,370 jobs in the Lahti Region. The number of jobs diminished over the next couple of years, so that in 1993 there were fewer than 70,000 jobs in the Lahti Region. The number of jobs had slowly increased to 79,138 in 1999.