BASIC
INFORMATION
Full
Name: FINLAND
Capital
Helsinki
Largest city Helsinki
Official language
Finnish 94.5 %, Swedish 5.5%
Government
Parliamentary democracy
Area 338,145 km²
Population
5,265,926
Currency Euro (€)
Time
zone (UTC +2)
Internet
TLD .fi
Calling
code +358
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GEOGRAPHY
& BACKGROUND
The
Republic of Finland (Finnish: Suomen tasavalta,
Swedish: Republiken Finland), is one of
the Nordic countries. It is situated in
Northern Europe, east of Sweden, west of
Russia and north of Estonia. The country
shares borders with the two former and Norway
to its north. Finland is bounded by the
Baltic Sea with the Gulf of Finland to the
south and the Gulf of Bothnia to the west.
The Åland Islands, off the south-western
coast, are under Finnish sovereignty while
enjoying extensive autonomy.
Finland
has a population of over five million people
spread over more than 330,000 km² (127,000
sq. mi) making it one of the most sparsely
populated countries in the world (see list
of countries by population density).
Finland
is ranked thirteenth on the 2005 United
Nations Human Development Index.
Along
with Estonian and Hungarian, Finnish is
one of the few official languages in Europe
that is not of Indo-European origin.
Finland
is a country of thousands of lakes and islands;
187,888 lakes (larger than 500 m²)
and 179,584 islands to be precise. One of
these lakes, Saimaa, is the 5th largest
in Europe. The Finnish landscape is mostly
flat with few hills and its highest point,
the Halti at 1,328 metres (4,357 ft), is
found in the extreme north of Lapland. Besides
the many lakes the landscape is dominated
by extensive boreal forests (about 75 per
cent of land area) and little arable land.
The greater part of the islands are found
in south-west, part of the archipelago of
the Åland Islands, and along the southern
coast in the Gulf of Finland. Finland is
one of the few countries in the world that
is still growing. Owing to the post-glacial
rebound that has been taking place since
the last ice age, the surface area of the
country is growing by about 7 square kilometres
(2.7 sq mi) a year.
Finland
numbers 5.2 million inhabitants and has
an average population density of 17 inhabitants
per square kilometre. This makes it, after
Norway and Iceland, the most sparsely populated
country in Europe. Finland's population
has always been concentrated in the southern
parts of the country, which is even more
pronounced after the 20th century urbanisation.
The biggest and most important cities in
Finland are the Greater Helsinki metropolitan
area (including the cities of Helsinki,
Espoo and Vantaa), Tampere, Turku, and Oulu.
After
the Winter War (1939) (and confirmed by
the outcome of the Continuation War) 12%
of Finland's population had to be re-settled.
War reparations, unemployment, and uncertainty
regarding Finland's chances to remain sovereign
and independent of the Soviet Union contributed
to considerable emigration, abating first
in the 1970s. Until then, some 500,000 Finns
had emigrated, chiefly to Sweden, although
half of the emigrants ultimately re-migrated
again.
Since
the late 1990s, Finland has received refugees
and immigrants at a rate comparable with
the other Nordic countries, although the
total ethnic-minority population remains
far lower in Finland than the rest. A considerable
number of immigrants have come from the
former Soviet Union claiming ethnic (Finnic)
kinship. However, over 20 languages are
now spoken in Finland by immigrant groups
of significant size — that is, with
at least a thousand speakers.
