Espoo is a city on the southern coast of Finland. It is part of the Helsinki Metropolitan Area along with the cities of Helsinki, Vantaa, and Kauniainen. Espoo shares its eastern border with Helsinki and Vantaa, while enclosing Kauniainen. Other bordering municipalities are Nurmijärvi and Vihti in the north and Kirkkonummi in the west. The national park of Nuuksio is situated in northwest Espoo.
Espoo encompasses 528 km², of which 312 km² are land. The current population is 234,466 (as of 2006-10-31), in Finland second only to that of Helsinki.
Espoo has several local regional centers. Espoo is thus divided into the following major areas: Espoon keskus (also administrative center), Espoonlahti, Kalajärvi, Kauklahti, Leppävaara, Matinkylä-Olari, and Tapiola.
The postal codes in Espoo begin with "02", varying from 02100-02380, 02600-02860 and 02920-02980, mainly becoming higher from South to North.
An anecdote of Espoo is "Los Angeles of Finland", meaning it has no city center but a number of local centers.
The Helsinki University of Technology is based in Otaniemi, Espoo, along with a thriving science community that includes numerous startups and organizations such as VTT–the Technical Research Center of Finland. Nokia, the telecommunications company, operates from Keilaniemi (and also from Karamalmi), Espoo, along with other high-tech companies such as KONE, Fortum, and the mobile telephone branch of Elisa Oyj.
Espoo is also the hometown to many members of the band, Children of Bodom