City of Turku is located on the shore of the Baltic Sea in south-west Finland. Turku has been established officially in 1229 and it has a long and interesting history behind itself. Turku has nowadays more than 170 000 inhabitants. It is a harbour city, which has a clear asset its road, rail and marine connections. At the gateway to Turku, Europe’s most extensive archipelago stretches out almost continuously all to way to Stockholm. In the whole archipelago sea area there are altogether 41 000 islands and islets, which also are areas for certain type of culture and industrial heritage. Turku was one of the first industrialised cities in Finland. Dominating industry was for centuries shipbuilding. The main site for the shipbuilding and many branches of industry related to shipbuilding has been the mouth of the River Aura. The river is the most meaningful urban river in Finland giving an industrial, and nowadays also a cultural image for the city. The Turku case presents the development and the transformation of the river mouth area as an example of the industrial heritage between land and sea. The project co-organizer in Finland, the University of Turku, is an international and multidisciplinary seat of science and learning. The university has 14 500 degree students. The Department of Geography, which is the leading partner of the project in Turku University, is specialised in regional environmental research, research into regional development, urban studies and applied geoinformatics. The university hill is one of the seven hills surrounding the Aura River valley in inner city area.