Helsinki was founded by Swedish King Gustav I in 1550 as the town of Helsingfors. Gustav intended for the town to serve the purpose of consolidating trade in the southern part of Finland and providing a competitor to Reval (today: "Tallinn"), a nearby Hanseatic League city which dominated local trade at the time. In order to ensure the economic viability of the city, the king ordered the citizens of several other towns to relocate to Helsingfors, but the order did not achieve its intended effect. The Swedish acquisition of northeastern Estonia, including Reval, in 1561 during the Livonian War caused the Swedish crown to lose interest in building up a competitor to Reval, and Helsingfors languished as a forgotten village for decades thereafter.