Collection · Medieval Finland
Finland has 125 sites surviving from the Middle Ages: 110 stone churches and 15 castles, from Finland's oldest castle in Turku to the fresco-painted church in Hattula. Also included are the castle ruins and ruined churches popular as day-trip destinations, from Kuusisto and Raseborg to the Pälkäne ruined church. Muinoin is a free map service where you'll find all of them on one map with further details: discover the ones near you and log your visits.
Open collection on the Muinoin map →125 sites · 110 churches · 15 castles
A curated selection from 125 sites. The full list is at the bottom of the page.
Finland's oldest surviving castle, built at the mouth of the Aura River in the 1280s. The castle served as Finland's most important administrative and military center for centuries, and today it is part of the Turku Museum Centre.
Did you know: in 1563 the castle held King Erik XIV's brother Duke John prisoner — he later rose to become King of Sweden as John III.
View on Muinoin map →One of Finland's best-preserved medieval castles, built on the shore of Lake Vanajavesi in the late 1200s. The castle grew from grey stone into a brick structure in the 1400s and later served as a prison for over a hundred years before becoming a museum.
Did you know: brick was a rare building material in 14th- and 15th-century Finland, so its use in the castle signalled exceptional wealth and investment from the Crown.
View on Muinoin map →Built on a rocky island in the Kyrönsalmi strait in 1475 to defend the eastern border against Novgorod. The three-towered stone castle is one of the Nordic countries' best-preserved medieval castles.
Did you know: the Savonlinna Opera Festival brings 70,000 visitors to the castle grounds every year, but the castle is also genuinely historic: King Gustav II Adolf visited in 1622, the only king ever to do so.
View on Muinoin map →One of Finland's best-preserved medieval castle ruins, built in the 1360s and 1370s as a counterweight to the Hanseatic city of Tallinn. The castle was abandoned as early as 1553, after the founding of Helsinki.
Did you know: in 2017 an amateur archaeologist illegally dug 284 pits at the castle site and found significant medieval weaponry. The perpetrator was convicted of destroying cultural heritage.
View on Muinoin map →Åland's only medieval castle, built in the late 1300s as an administrative center for the archipelago. Now a restored museum, open during the summer season.
Did you know: the deposed King Erik XIV sat imprisoned at Kastelholm in 1571, held by his own brother John III — the same man Erik had earlier had imprisoned at Turku Castle.
View on Muinoin map →Founded in 1293 on a rocky island in the Linnansalmi strait, and for centuries the easternmost stronghold of the Kingdom of Sweden. Today it operates as a museum on the Russian side of the border.
Did you know: the castle's founder, Marshal Torkel Knutsson, was beheaded in Stockholm in 1306 and never saw the castle he built grow into the kingdom's key stronghold.
View on Muinoin map →Standing on the bank of the Aura River, this stone church was built in many phases and is largely medieval. It is called Finland's national shrine, and it is the country's only medieval basilica.
Did you know: the cathedral bells' twelve strikes have been heard on the radio every midday since 1944, a broadcasting tradition of Finland's national broadcaster Yle that began during the Continuation War.
View on Muinoin map →Finland's only medieval brick church, dated to 1472–1490. The church is known for its murals from the 1510s, which cover the walls and vaults almost entirely.
Did you know: the walls and vaults carry around 180 painted scenes, Finland's largest medieval mural cycle. The paintings survived because they were whitewashed over in 1820 and not uncovered again until 1886.
View on Muinoin map →A late-Gothic cathedral at the heart of Porvoo's old town. The church's 28-part star vault is an architectural rarity and one of Finland's most significant medieval buildings.
Did you know: here, in 1809, Finland's Estates swore an oath of allegiance to Emperor Alexander I — an event immortalized on Finland's 2-euro commemorative coin.
View on Muinoin map →This medieval grey-stone church was originally the church of Naantali's Bridgettine convent and is now the only surviving building from the convent.
Did you know: the town of Naantali grew up around the convent, whose Swedish name Nådendal means "valley of grace".
View on Muinoin map →A small island in Lake Köyliönjärvi, near where, according to tradition, Bishop Henry was killed in 1156. In the Middle Ages the island became Finland's most important pilgrimage site.
Did you know: tradition holds that it all began here — Bishop Henry's killing at Lake Köyliönjärvi gave rise to all of medieval Finland's Christian pilgrimage tradition.
View on Muinoin map →A medieval grey-stone church dedicated to the Apostle Matthew, on the bank of the Espoonjoki river. Dendrochronological analysis dates the church's construction to between 1485 and 1490.
Did you know: although Espoo is one of Finland's youngest major cities, its cathedral is over 500 years old — the city's glass towers and the medieval church are the two extremes of the same municipality.
View on Muinoin map →Vihti's medieval stone church was built around 1500–1520. It fell out of use and decayed once the parish's new brick church was completed in 1772.
Did you know: Vihti's current church is already the parish's second — the medieval stone church was left in ruins to make way for it.
View on Muinoin map →All the sites in the collection, by region. Most of the churches are grey-stone churches built of natural stone. "Lost" means nothing remains to be seen on site today, but its location and history can still be found on the Muinoin map.
Muinoin's Medieval Finland collection has 125 sites: 110 stone churches and 15 castles across Finland, including Åland.
Turku Castle is Finland's oldest surviving castle, built at the mouth of the Aura River in the 1280s.
Hattula Church of the Holy Cross in Kanta-Häme is Finland's only medieval brick church, known for its extensive murals from the 1510s.
A grey-stone church is a common term for a medieval stone church built of local grey natural stone, i.e. granite. Most of the collection's 110 stone churches are grey-stone churches; brick was generally used only for details requiring precision, such as window openings and gable decorations.
The collection includes 14 ruin sites. The best-known castle ruins are the Bishop's Castle of Kuusisto in Kaarina and Raseborg Castle in Snappertuna; the most popular ruined churches are the Pälkäne ruined church and the ruins of St. Birgitta's Church in Vihti. All are marked on the map with their own icon.
Most do, but some sites have been lost over the centuries, for example Oulu Castle and several medieval sacristies. Muinoin marks these on the map with their own icon, so their location and history can still be found.
Muinoin is a free map service that gathers Finland's historical sites into curated collections. Alongside medieval Finland, Muinoin also covers Finland's UNESCO World Heritage Sites. It works directly in your browser, with no app store install required. You can optionally log your visits.