Kauniainen (IPA: /ˈkɑu.ni.ɑiˌnen/; Grankulla in Swedish) is a small town of 8,454 inhabitants (as of December 2005) in the Helsinki Metropolitan Area, Finland. It is a legally independent suburb within the city of Espoo, in Greater Helsinki. Kauniainen was founded by a corporation in 1906, AB Grankulla, that parcelled land and created a suburb for villas; a similar scheme was used by Danderyd in Stockholm, Sweden.