The first inhabits of Vaasa were from Norrland on the other side of Gulf. At the beginning of the fourteenth century they disembarked on a wooded island where they built the fortress of Korsholm and Saint Mary´s Church, which is still to be seen among the ruins of Old Vaasa.
Vaasa has always been a business and administrative centre. The Swedish King Charles IX founded the town in 1606 and gave it the name of his royal hall and the market place. The basic plan was a rectangle eight streets long and four wide.

In the seventeenth century a school was established,followed in the eighteenth by a court of appeal and Finland´s first library. Trade by land and sea flourished in the free port. Industry began to develop, particularly in the field of building ships and fitting them out. But in 1852, when the town´s population had grown to 3.200, it burnt to the ground.

The new town rose about 7km/4.5 miles away and began to take its present shape. It was built on a grid plan, a town of broad avenues and public buildings. The railway reached the town in 1883, the harbour became established. A new era had opened for Vaasa.

During the Civil War in 1918, Vaasa was the capital of white Finland. In commemoration, the Freedom statue was erected in the market square, the "Jaeger" or White Guard memorial set up on the shore, and the cross of freedom added o the town´s coat of arms. The first bank notes of independent Finland were minted in Vaasa.