Finland Country Info - Europe

Description and Basic Information

Finland with its capital Helsinki is located in Europe (Northern Europe, bordering the Baltic Sea). It covers some 337,031 square kilometres (slightly smaller than Montana) with 5,244,000 citizens. Finnish, Swedish and are the official languages spoken in Finland (consider regional differences). Norway, Russia and Sweden are bordering countries.

Finland is in Northern Europe and has borders with Russia to the east, Norway to the north, and Sweden to the west. Not much is known about Finland's early history, with archaeologists still debating when and where a tribe of Finno-Ugric speakers cropped up. Roman historian Tacitus mentions a tribe primitive and savage Fenni in 100 AD and even the Vikings chose not to settle, trading and plundering along the coasts. Buffeted by its neighbors for centuries and absorbing influences from west, east and south, Finnish culture as a distinct identity was only born in the 19th century: we are not Swedes, and we do not wish to become Russian, so let us be Finns.

Pictures from Capital (Helsinki)

Photos provided by Panoramio are under the copyright of their owners.

About Finland

The topography features mostly low, flat to rolling plains interspersed with lakes and low hills. The average density of population is about 15 per km². The climate in Finland can be described as cold temperate with potentially subarctic but comparatively mild because of moderating influence of the North Atlantic Current, Baltic Sea, and more than 60,000 lakes. Potential natural disasters are NA.

To reach someone in Finland dial +358 prior to a number. There are 1,430,000 installed telephones. And there are 7,700,000 registered mobile phones. The cellular networks operate on frequencies of 900, 1800 MHz and 3G. Websites typically end with the top level domain ".fi". If you want to bring electric appliances (e.g. battery charger), keep in mind the local 230V - 50Hz. The following list are the 5 regions/states in Finland we know off.

Demographic Statistics

In the year 2010, the total Finnish population grew at a rate of 0.08% (or by 4,414 citizens). With 53,339 deaths and 54,495 babies born, the natural increase rate lies at 0.02%. 3,258 persons more in total immigrated to the country than emmigrated.

An overview of age distribution in Finland: Each pair of bars represents a single age group (male/female). Each group is spanning 5 years. E.g. 0 to 5 years, 5 to 10 etc. and group "0 to 5" being at the left end and "100 +" at the right end of the chart.

Based on content from wikitravel.org. The original article can be found here based on the work of these users.
Geographic information is based on the data provided by geonames.org, CIA factsbook and Unesco.