5 Amazing Facts About Finland
Here are 5 amazing facts about the history, geography, and culture of this beautiful Nordic nation!
The Åland Islands are an autonomous region of 6,757 islands in western Finland with a population of around 28,000 people. The islands are intriguing due to the fact that 90.2% of the population of the islands speak Swedish! The reason why the Ålanders speak Swedish is still up for debate, and it is unclear if the islanders are Swedes or simply Swedish-speaking Finns. However, the reason why the Åland Islands are part of Finland is more clear. Sweden and Finland were united from the late middle ages until 1809, when Finland and the Ålands were ceded to the Russian Empire after a war. After Finland gained its independence and fought a civil war as a result of World War One, the Ålanders overwhelmingly passed a petition to join Sweden. However, Finland did not recognize the petition and stated that the islands could become an autonomous part of Finland. The matter was decided by the League of Nations, who ruled that the Ålands could become a part of Finland if the islanders could retain their culture and traditions. Today, the Ålands have their own parliament, flag, stamps, and airline, and Swedish is the sole official language there.
Finnish is actually not related to the languages of Finland's neighboring Nordic countries or Russia! It is a Uralic language, not an Indo-European language like Swedish or Russian, and therefore it is closely related to Estonian, Hungarian, Sami, and several minority languages spoken in Russia. Finnish has some interesting features, including not having articles such as the word “the” in English, having postpositions, which are like prepositions but come after the word they describe, and having 15 grammatical cases. Swedish is spoken as a native language by just over 5% of Finns and is taught as a compulsory course in Finnish schools, but in reality most Finns don’t speak it that well.
Finland’s education system is widely known as one of the best in the world. The system generally provides students with a less strict education that prioritizes fun in learning, and this is especially true for primary school students. Some specific features of the system include: a late start to schooling at ages 6 or 7, one-on-one special education, much outdoor free-play time every day for primary school students, less discipline and little homework (especially for younger students), free school meals, high freedom, high education, high respect for, and full unionization of teachers, and only one standardized test taken per student (which is taken by students graduating from upper secondary school).
Finland lies a lot more to the north than you might think! The country’s northernmost point, which is at a spot near the village of Nuorgam in Finnish Lapland, makes the nation the sixth most northerly in the world. Nuorgam is in fact only around 1 degree in latitude south of the latitude of the most northerly point in Alaska, Point Barrow. All of Finland is also north of the southernmost point in Greenland. The reasons for Finland’s more moderate climate as compared to other areas at its latitude are its proximity to inland waters, its proximity to the Baltic Sea, and the affects of the Gulf Stream on it.
There are over 180,000 lakes in Finland, and this makes the nation the most lake-rich in the entire world! In fact, around 10% of the country’s land area is covered by lakes! The Southeast of the nation is known as Lakeland, and some parts of the region are so densely packed with lakes that it looks like the land is in patches around the lakes instead of vice versa. One major reason for Finland having such a high concentration of lakes is that when the glaciers that covered the region during the last major ice age created dents in the land, the dents became lakes as they were filled with meltwater after the glaciers receded. The largest lake in the nation is Saimaa, which is a glacially-formed lake located near the eastern border with Russia. The lake, which is actually the fourth largest freshwater lake in Europe, is home to the Saimaa Ringed Seal, which is a critically endangered species with a population of only around 320 individuals. The species is currently on the recovery, however.
Thanks for reading! The pictures in this article are, from top to bottom: the flag of Finland, a map showing the location of the Åland Islands, an aerial view of some of the Åland Islands, the flag of the Åland Islands, a written sample of the Finnish language, a graph of the Uralic language family, happy and curious Finnish schoolchildren, a word cloud about Finnish education, a map showing Finland's latitude as compared to Greenland's, a view of the village of Nuorgam in Finnish Lapland, a view of Finnish Lakeland, and a beautiful Saimaa Ringed Seal.