The Kuopio Province (Finnish: Kuopion lääni, Swedish: Kuopio län, Russian: Куопиоская губерния) was a province of Finland[1] from 1831 to 1997. The province was named after its capital, city of Kuopio.
History
The predecessor of province was the County of Savolax and Karelia, which was established in 1775 when Finland was integrated part of Sweden.
As a consequence of the tumultuous conflicts of the Napoleonic Wars, Sweden had allied itself with the Russian Empire, United Kingdom and the other parties of the Fourth Coalition against Napoleonic France. However, following the treaty of Treaty of Tilsit in 1807, Russia made peace with France and left the coalition. This enabled Russia in 1808 to challenge Sweden in the Finnish War, over the control of Finland. In the Treaty of Fredrikshamn on September 17, 1809 Sweden was obliged to cede all its territory in Finland, east of the Torne River, to Russia.
The ceded territories became a part of the Russian Empire and were reconstituted into the Grand Duchy of Finland, with the Russian Tsar as the Grand Duke. At first there wasn't any changes in the County of Savolax and Karelia, which was now a province in the autonomic Grand Duchy. Kuopio Province was established in 1831 from this province, while its southern parts were transferred to the new Mikkeli Province.
In 1960 the eastern part of the Kuopio province was separated as the Northern Karelia Province. In 1997 the province was reunited with Northern Karelia and together they merged with the Mikkeli Province, to establish the new Eastern Finland Province.
