, Nokia, has been a
seat farm since 1670. The first literary reference to Nokia is in a 1505 document, which mentions two farms
Stoora och Lilla Nokia, Swedish for "Big and Little Nokia". The Nokia manor was formed out of these two farms. The area was a part of the
Pirkkala parish. Nokia was the setting of one of the largest battles in the
Club War, a 1596–1597
peasant uprising against feudal lords in Finland, which was then part of the
Kingdom of Sweden. The peasants, armed with clubs, took up residence in Nokia Manor and won several skirmishes against the feudal cavalry, but were decisively defeated by
Klaus Fleming on 1–2 January 1597. Thousands of clubmen were slain and their leader
Jaakko Ilkka, who had fled, was captured a few weeks later and executed. The Club War was the last major peasant revolt in Finland, and it permanently consolidated the hold of the nation-state. Much later, in the
Finnish Civil War (1918), Nokia (along with neighbouring Tampere) was a stronghold for the
Red Guards and saw some combat. In 1922, Suur-Pirkkala was split into Pohjois- and Etelä-Pirkkala (Northern and Southern). Nokia used to reach out to the current heart of Tampere, as the
Pispala area was part of Nokia (Pohjois-Pirkkala) until 1937. In 1938 Pohjois-Pirkkala was renamed Nokia while Etelä-Pirkkala became simply Pirkkala. Two municipalities have been consolidated with Nokia:
Suoniemi in 1973 and
Tottijärvi in 1976. Nokia was designated as a city in 1977.
Industrial history The early predecessor of eponymous telecommunications giant
Nokia was (
de facto) born when
mining engineer Fredrik Idestam established his second
groundwood pulp mill on the banks of
Nokianvirta river near the town of Nokia in 1868 and his enterprises were named as
Nokia Aktiebolag (Nokia Ltd) in 1871.
Suomen Gummitehdas Oy (Finnish Rubber Works Ltd) set up a factory in Nokia in 1904. These two companies and Suomen Kaapelitehdas Oy (Finnish Cable Works Ltd) amalgamated in 1967 forming
Nokia Corporation. Different branches of this
conglomerate were split into several companies or sold off between 1988 and 1996. The rubber works still operate in Nokia as
Nokian Tyres and originally in 1880 established
paper mill as
Essity. Despite the Nokia Corporation having its early roots in Nokia it no longer has any operations in the city. Telecommunications business get started in the early 1960s as an electronics division of Finnish Cable Works Ltd (later Nokia Cable Ltd) in
Helsinki and later also main office were moved to
Capital Region. At this time the headquarters are situated in
Espoo. The only current presence of the company in the city is the Nokia mansion, which is sometimes used for private parties for the company's executive staff. The city has repeatedly been asked to commemorate the company it gave birth to, but it has always declined, on the grounds that mobile phones were never produced there.
Nokia does have
SoC R&D unit away in nearby city of
Tampere. ==Present==