Helsinki, Uusimaa, Finland
Helsinki underground pedestrian network
Central Helsinki has a set of underground pedestrian passages linking the Central Railway Station, the Asematunneli shopping tunnel, metro stations and the basements of the Forum and Kamppi shopping centres. The City of Helsinki plans the subsurface through a legally binding Underground Master Plan, while individual passages and shopping levels are built and run by a mix of city, transit and private property owners.
Governance
Who owns it, who runs it, what the rules are.
- Owner
- Finnish law gives a property owner control of the ground beneath it, in practice down to about 6 metres, and the City of Helsinki owns about 65% of the city's land, so most deep rock space is under city control. Passages under streets such as Kaivokatu sit beneath city land, while the underground floors of Forum, Kamppi and other buildings are private; ownership of individual passage segments was not confirmed.
- Operator
- No single operator. The City of Helsinki plans the subsurface; transit facilities, shopping centres and property companies run their own segments.
- Hours
- Set by each facility. Asematunneli shops have had special permission since opening to trade until 22:00 and on public holidays. No published closing hours for the passages themselves were found.[04]
- Public right
- No statutory public right of passage through the underground network was found. Access appears to depend on the opening hours of each station, shopping centre or passage.
- Who pays
- No public source was found on who pays for cleaning, security or upkeep of each passage. The city charges rent to companies using city-owned underground space, at about half the ground-level rate.
Legal instruments
- Underground Master Plan of Helsinki (plans 11830/1 and 11830/2), approved 8 December 2010 ↗Legally valid master plan allocating underground space across the whole city, with the inner city at 1:10,000 scale.[01]
- Underground Master Plan 2021 (Helsingin maanalainen yleiskaava 2021) ↗Updated plan whose proposal was completed on 21 January 2021; it reserves space for several traffic tunnels, only some of which are expected to be built.[02]
- Right-of-use agreements for underground construction ↗Anyone building underground must obtain an agreement on the right to use the site, and a building permit requires control of the site.[01]
Governing bodies
Open issues
- The 2021 master plan reserves space for several traffic tunnels, including a central tunnel, only some of which are expected to be built.
- Consultants studying the underground city for the plan update looked at walkability, social safety, accessibility and wayfinding.
Timeline
- Asematunneli is completed by excavating Kaivokatu and casting a concrete lid over the tunnel.[04]
- The City Planning Committee approves planning principles for an Underground Master Plan on 9 December 2004.[01]
- Helsinki City Council approves the Underground Master Plan on 8 December 2010.[01]
- The Administrative Court rejects the only appeal against the plan on 18 November 2011.[01]
- The City Board considers a central-Helsinki traffic tunnel costing up to €1.4 billion that would free surface streets for pedestrians.[07]
- FCG studies walkability, safety and orientation in the underground city to support the master plan update.[05]
- The proposal for the Underground Master Plan 2021 is completed on 21 January 2021.[02]
What it cost · who pays
- City rent for underground space · 2012
- about 50% of equivalent ground-level rentCity of Helsinki charges companies that use underground space[01]
The story
Helsinki's underground pedestrian network grew from Asematunneli, a shopping tunnel completed in 1967 by excavating Kaivokatu and casting a concrete lid over it. The tunnel links the Central Railway Station with the Rautatientori metro station, department stores and the Forum shopping centre. From the start its shops were allowed to open until 22:00 and on public holidays, which made it a well-known place for late shopping.
Later passages connected Asematunneli westward through Forum to the Kamppi centre and the Sähkötalo building. A 2020 study for the city reported about 17 million annual metro users at the Central Railway Station and 14.5 million at Kamppi, and found that about 80% of downtown grocery stores are underground. The tunnels work as indoor streets with signage and seating, and one 2025 account puts peak use of the city-centre tunnels at 1,500 to 2,000 people an hour.
The City of Helsinki has kept an underground space allocation plan since the 1980s. The City Council approved a full Underground Master Plan on 8 December 2010. The plan covers the whole city and is legally valid. A revised Underground Master Plan 2021 was prepared, with the proposal completed on 21 January 2021; it reserves space for several traffic tunnels, only some of which are expected to be built.
Ownership is fragmented. Under Finnish practice a landowner controls the subsurface to roughly six metres, and the city owns about 65% of Helsinki's land. Anyone building underground needs a right-of-use agreement, and the city charges rent for underground space at about half the ground-level rate. No public source was found showing who owns and maintains each passage segment, or whether any public right of passage exists.
Questions people ask
Is there an underground city in Helsinki?
Who plans Helsinki's underground spaces?
When did Asematunneli open?
What are the opening hours of Helsinki's underground passages?
Sources
- Master Planning for Underground Space Use (Ilkka Vähäaho, City of Helsinki) — City of Helsinki (2012)primary
- Helsingin maanalaisen yleiskaavan liikennetunneleiden vaikutukset tieliikenteeseen — City of Helsinki (2021)primary
- Asematunneli — Wikipedia
- Asematunneli (Helsinki) — Wikipedia (Finnish)
- Going underground in Helsinki — FCG (2020)
- Helsinki: the underground city — Mistosite (2025)
- Helsinki city board to consider 1.4bn-euro tunnel plan — Yle (2019)
About this record
Confidence low · reviewed 2026-10-19. The planning framework is well sourced from City of Helsinki documents, but the pedestrian system's governance is not. Not found: who owns and maintains Asematunneli and the Forum–Kamppi links, passage opening hours, any public right of passage, and total network length. The City Council approval and legal-force dates of the Underground Master Plan 2021 were not confirmed because the session's web search budget ran out; check the hel.fi decision archive (Ahjo). The Yle article title in sources is descriptive, not verbatim. The 1,500–2,000 people per hour figure comes from a secondary article citing an unseen source. Not found: Length.
Map geometry: 496 corridor features, © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL), as of 2026-10-20. Levels come from OpenStreetMap tags and can be incomplete.
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