Otaniemi

Otaniemi (Finnish), or Otnäs (Swedish), is a district of Espoo, Finland. It is located near the border of Helsinki, the capital of Finland. Otaniemi is located on the southern shore of the Laajalahti bay, next to the district of Tapiola near the border to Helsinki. It is part of the Greater Tapiola major district. Otaniemi and Tapiola are separated by the Ring I beltway. The Aalto University metro station, located in Otaniemi, was taken into use in 2017. Otaniemi is the home of Aalto University's campus, thus "Otaniemi" is often used as a synonym for Aalto. However, several research and business facilities are also located in Otaniemi. The most prominent institutions for science and engineering in Otaniemi are the VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland and the Geological Survey of Finland (GTK). Business is represented in the area by the business incubator Technopolis. In 2010, Otaniemi became home to Aalto University, formed from the merger of the Helsinki University of Technology, the University of Art and Design Helsinki, and the Helsinki School of Economics. The oldest signs of human activity in the Otaniemi area can be found in front of the courtyard of what is now Jämeräntaival 1 (the so-called summer hotel): a pile of rocks dating from the Bronze Age (also called "the grave of the primordial teekkari"), about 3000 years old. Graves of this kind have apparently also been built as memorial for the disappeared, because no bones of the dead were found from this pile. The graves were apparently built on islets, which the Jämeräntaival hill also used to be. Ancient fishermen were active in the area because the main course of the Vantaa river used to flow into the Iso Huopalahti bay at the bottom of Laajalahti at the time. The etymology of the name "Otaniemi" is not certain. It is thought to have come from the Finnish word "oka" meaning the point of a spear, because of the sharp shape of the peninsula, or from "ohto" meaning a bear, which is also supported by the names of nearby places such as Otsolahti and Karhusaari, or from the Sámi word "outa" meaning a forested lowland.