The Lutheran church of Jakobstad, completed in 1731, is the dominant building of the town centre and one of the older surviving churches on the Ostrobothnian coast. The exterior is plain in the Nordic Lutheran manner, but the interior is notable for its painted ceiling panels, wooden furnishings, and the quality of its historical detail — a well-preserved example of the church interiors that once lined this part of the Gulf of Bothnia.
The church is also associated with Johan Ludvig Runeberg, Finland's national poet, who was born in Jakobstad in 1804. Runeberg spent his later life in Porvoo, where his house is now a museum, but the Jakobstad church holds records of his baptism and early life.