Eemil Nestor Setälä (pronounced [ˈeːmil ˈnestor ˈsetælæ]; 27 February 1864 – 8 February 1935) was a Finnish politician who served as Chairman of the Senate of Finland from September 1917 to November 1917, when he was author of the Finnish Declaration of Independence.

Setälä was a linguist, professor of Finnish language and literature at Helsinki University from 1893 to 1929.

He was a major influence on the study of Finnish language, the founder of the research institute Suomen suku ("Finnish kin"), and creator of the Uralic Phonetic Alphabet.

In 1892 he married the writer and editor, Helmi Krohn, and she took the name Setälä which she used until they divorced in 1913.

For a brief period at the end of World War I, he served as acting head of state as the Chairman of the Senate.