With almost 20 museums, numerous art galleries and a city orchestra, Vaasa can lay claim to being the cultural heart of Ostrobothnia. A visit to Vaasa is always a rewarding experience, especially when you arrive during the Vaasa Choir Festival, the Korsholm Music Festival, the prestigious Jorma Panula Conducting Competition, or on Vaasa's popular Night of the Arts. Nature lovers know Vaasa for Terranova, which introduces the wonderful Kvarken Archipelago, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and will delight in the Nature Trail at Öjberget which takes in the Öjbergsmossen bog, a giant's pot hole, a 'devil's field' and a dwarf pine-covered meteorite crater. At Meteoria Söderfjärden, among other things, is a bird-watching tower in the middle of the most important resting area for cranes in Finland.
Vaasa has three universities. The largest one is the University of Vaasa, which is located in the neighbourhood of Palosaari. Palosaari is a peninsula near the center of Vaasa, connected to it by bridges. The other two universities are Åbo Akademi, headquartered in Turku, and the Swedish School of Economics and Business Administration, or Hanken, headquartered in Helsinki. Unique to Vaasa is the Finland-Swedish teachers training school, part of Åbo Akademi.
