Sauvo

Sauvo [ˈsɑu̯vɔ] (Swedish: Sagu) is a municipality in southwestern Finland with 2950 inhabitants as of 31 December 2020. It is located on the Baltic Sea coast in the Varsinais-Suomi county 35 kilometres east of Turku. The municipality is monolingual Finnish-speaking.

The municipal centre of Sauvo is located a few kilometres inland. The area of the municipality is surrounded by the sea on three sides, and the total length of the coastline is over 140 kilometres. Nearby Turku is about 20 minutes away by car, so many residents commute to the largest city in Varsinais-Suomi. In summer, Sauvo's population doubles due to the many holidaymakers: there are 1400 holiday homes in the municipality.

Sauvo was already permanently settled during the Iron Age, but it is unclear whether there is continuity with the medieval settlement. The first documented mention of Sauvo dates back to 1335, at which time there was already a church in the village, probably a wooden church from the 13th century. The stone church of Sauvo, which has survived to the present day, was built around 1470.

At the end of the 17th century Karuna was detached from Sauvo as a chapel parish after the lord of the manor of Karuna donated a wooden church in 1685. Between 1908 and 1910, a new granite church in the National Romantic style was built in Karuna according to plans by architect Josef Stenbäck. After the new church was completed, the old Karuna church was dismantled and rebuilt in the Seurasaari Open Air Museum in Helsinki. The municipality of Karuna existed until 1969, when it was incorporated into Sauvo and to a lesser extent into Kimito.