Finland · Varsinais-Suomi · Turku
III kaupunginosa, Turku — Area Guide & Where to Stay
Bare rock turned parkland climbs from the Aura in III kaupunginosa, a central Turku district holding the Paavo Nurmi Stadium and Samppalinnanpuisto.
About III kaupunginosa
Where to stay in III kaupunginosa
The right area depends on your trip — here's what each neighbourhood is best for.
III kaupunginosa keeps parkland and institutions where a central Turku district would otherwise keep hotel frontage. Rooms inside it are few. Samppalinnanpuisto and Turun Urheilupuisto take most of the ground between the Aura and Kaskenkatu, and what is left along Betaniankatu and Kupittaankatu is residential street rather than lodging.
A bed across the river leaves the district close: Itäinen Rantakatu runs past the Wäinö Aaltonen Museum of Art and the Turku City Theatre, and Martinkatu meets the bridge at the western corner.
About III kaupunginosa
What are the main landmarks in III kaupunginosa?
The landmarks of III kaupunginosa stand in two parks and along one riverside street. Turun Urheilupuisto holds the Paavo Nurmi Stadium, an athletics ground laid out on bare rock in 1893, and the Biologinen museo a short way up Neitsytpolku. Samppalinnanpuisto, the second park, holds Samppalinnan maauimala.
Between the two, on Itäinen Rantakatu, stand the Turku City Theatre and the Wäinö Aaltonen Museum of Art, which opened in 1967 and shows contemporary work under the short name WAM. Heideken and Luostarivuoren koulu fill the blocks behind them.
What is the history of III kaupunginosa?
III kaupunginosa was named Klöster Stadsdelen when Turku laid out its numbered grid districts, a Swedish cloister name that Luostarivuoren koulu still echoes in Finnish. Its high ground came later. Through most of the nineteenth century the rock above the Aura lay unkept and largely bare, until the city council leased it in 1893 to Turun Urheilunystävät on condition that the society make a park of it.
Ski and ski jumping contests ran that first spring, athletics and tennis grounds followed by autumn, and the ground became Turun Urheilupuisto. Samppalinnan maauimala was cut into the neighbouring hill in the 1950s.
Where is III kaupunginosa?
III kaupunginosa runs from the east bank of the Aura up to Kaskenkatu, bounded west by Martinkatu and Betaniankatu and south by Kupittaankatu.
More areas in Turku
Updated September 2026