Cities

   Finland, officially the Republic of Finland (Finnish: Suomi, Suomen tasavalta, Swedish: Republiken Finland (help·info)), is a Nordic country situated in Northern Europe. It is bordered with Sweden to the west, Russia to the east, Norway to the north while Estonia lies to its south across the Gulf of Finland.

   Previously part of Sweden and from 1809 autonomous in the Russian Empire, Finland declared its independence in 1917. Today, Finland is a democratic, parliamentary republic and a member state of the United Nations and the European Union.

   Finland has a population of 5,290,157 spread over 338,145 square kilometres (130,559 square miles) making it the most sparsely populated country in the European Union. As their mother tongue, most Finns speak Finnish, one of the few official languages of the European Union that is not of Indo-European origin, with the second official language Swedish spoken natively by a 5.5 percent minority.

   Finland is eleventh on the United Nations' Human Development Index and ranked as the sixth happiest nation in the world. According to the World Audit Democracy profile, Finland is the freest nation in the world, in terms of civil liberties, freedom of the press, low corruption levels and political rights.

History

   Prehistory and Swedish era until 1809
 
   Prehistoric paintings in Astuvansalmi in Ristiina, the Southern Savonia region. According to archaeological evidence, the area now composing Finland was first settled around 8500 BCE during the Stone Age as the ice shield of the last ice age receded. The earliest people were probably hunter-gatherers, living primarily off what the tundra and sea could offer. Pottery is known from around the 5300 BCE (see Comb Ceramic Culture). Scientists believe it is probable that speakers of a Finno-Ugric language arrived in the area during the Stone Age (see Finno-Ugric peoples), and were possibly even among the first Mesolithic settlers in Europe. The arrival of the Battle Axe culture (or Cord-Ceramic Culture) in southern coastal Finland around 3200 BCE may have coincided with the start of agriculture. However, the earliest certain records of agriculture are from the late third millenium BCE. Hunting and fishing continued to be important parts of the subsistence economy, especially in the northern and eastern parts of the country.

   The Bronze Age (1500–500 BCE) and Iron Age (500 BCE–1200 CE) were characterised by extensive contacts with other cultures in the Fennoscandian and the Baltic region. The first verifiable written documents appeared in the twelfth century.

   The sea fortress of Suomenlinna was founded by a decision of the Swedish Diet in 1747 as a defence works and naval base, to be built on the islands off Helsinki.Sweden secured its hold of Finland in the 13th century. Swedish became the dominant language of administration and education; Finnish was chiefly a language for the peasantry, clergy and local courts in predominantly Finnish-speaking areas. The nobility was Swedish and small coastal towns were predominantly German. The Bishop of Turku was the most important person in Finland during the Catholic era. Finland was then called "Österland".

   The Middle Ages ended with the Reformation when the Finns converted to Lutheranism. In the 16th century, Mikael Agricola published the first written works in Finnish. The first university in Finland, The Royal Academy of Turku, was established in 1640. In the 18th century, wars between Sweden and Russia led to occupation of Finland twice by Russian forces, known to the Finns as the Greater Wrath (1714–1721) and the Lesser Wrath (1742–1743). By this time "Finland" was the predominant term for the whole area from the Gulf of Bothnia to the Russian border.

   Grand Duchy in the Russian Empire (1809–1917)
 
   Thirteen of the nineteen women elected to Parliament in 1907. The Finnish Parliament celebrates its centenary in 2006–2007.Main article: Grand Duchy of Finland
See also: Finland's language strife and Russification of Finland
On March 29, 1809, after being conquered by the armies of Alexander I of Russia in the Finnish War, Finland became a semi-autonomous Grand Duchy in the Russian Empire until the end of 1917. During the Russian era, the Finnish language started to gain recognition, first probably to sever the cultural and emotional ties with Sweden and thereafter, from the 1860s onwards, as a result of a strong nationalism, known as the Fennoman movement. Milestones included the publication of what would become Finland's national epic, the Kalevala, in 1835; and the Finnish language achieving equal legal status with Swedish in 1892.

   Despite the Finnish famine of 1866-1868, in which about 15 percent of the population died, political and economic development was rapid from the 1860s onwards.

   In 1906, universal suffrage was adopted in the Grand Duchy of Finland, the second country in the world where this happened. However, the relationship between the Grand Duchy and the Russian Empire soured when the Russian government made moves to restrict Finnish autonomy. For example, the universal suffrage was in practise nearly meaningless, since the emperor did not approve any of the laws adopted by the Finnish parliament. Desire for independence gained ground, first among radical nationalists and socialists.

   Civil War (1917–1918) and early independence

   Main articles: Finland's declaration of independence and Finnish Civil War
On December 6, 1917, shortly after the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia, Finland declared its independence, which was approved by Bolshevist Russia.

   In 1918, the country experienced a brief but bitter Civil War that affected domestic politics for many decades afterwards. The Civil War was fought between "the Whites", who were supported by Imperial Germany, and "the Reds", supported by Bolshevist Russia. The Reds consisted mostly of propertyless rural and industrial workers who, despite universal suffrage in 1906, felt that they lacked political influence. The White forces were mostly made up of bourgeoisie and wealthy peasantry, politically to the right. Eventually, the Whites overcame the Reds. The deep social and political enmity between the Reds and Whites remained. The civil war and activist expeditions (see Heimosodat) to the Soviet Union strained eastern relations.

   After a brief flirtation with monarchy, Finland became a presidential republic, with Kaarlo Juho Ståhlberg elected as its first president in 1919. The Finnish–Russian border was determined by the Treaty of Tartu in 1920, largely following the historic border but granting Pechenga (Finnish: Petsamo) and its Barents Sea harbour to Finland. Finnish democracy survived the upsurge of the extreme rightist Lapua Movement and Great Depression in the early '30s. However, legislators tended to be anti-communist and the relationship between Finland and the Soviet Union was tense.

Territory

   Since 1st of January of 2005, Finland has:

• 6 administrative provinces (finnish: lääni, swedish: län)
  
• They're divided in 20 regions (finnish: maakunta, swedish:  landskap)
  
• The regions are divided in 74 sub-regions (finnish: seutukunta, swedish: ekonomisk region)
  
• Those sub-regions are divided in 432 municipalities (finnish: kunta, swedish: kommun)

 Provinces

  The state organisation is divided into six administrative provinces (lääni, pl. läänit) The provinces are further divided into ninety state local districts:

• Southern Finland (Etelä-Suomen lääni/Södra Finlands län), capital: Hämeenlinna
  
• Western Finland (Länsi-Suomen lääni/Västra Finlands län), capital: Turku
  
• Eastern Finland (Itä-Suomen lääni/Östra Finlands län), capital: Mikkeli
  
• Oulu (Oulun lääni/Uleåborgs län), capital: Oulu
  
• Laponia (Lapin lääni/Lapplands län), capital: Rovaniemi
  
• Åland (in swedish Åland, in finnish Ahvenanmaa), capital: Mariehamn (in finnish Maarianhamina)

Geography

   Finland is a country of thousands of lakes and islands; 187,888 lakes (larger than 500 m²) and 179,584 islands to be precise.[10] One of these lakes, Saimaa, is the fifth largest in Europe. The Finnish landscape is mostly flat with few hills and its highest point, the Halti at 1,324 metres, is found in the extreme north of Lapland at the border between Finland and Norway.

   The landscape is covered mostly (seventy-five percent of land area) by coniferous taiga forests and fens, with little arable land. The most common type of rock is granite. It is a ubiquitous part of the scenery, visible wherever there is no soil cover. Moraine or till is the most common type of soil, covered by a thin layer of humus of biological origin. The greater part of the islands are found in southwest in the Archipelago Sea, 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 whose surface area 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 square miles) a year.[11]

   The distance from the most Southern point – Hanko – to the most northern point of Finland – Nuorgam – is 1,445 kilometres (898 miles) (driving distance), which would take approximately 18.5 hours to drive. This is very similar to Great Britain (Land's End to John o' Groats – 1,404 kilometres (872 miles) and 16.5 h).

Economy

  Finland has a highly industrialised, free-market economy with a per capita output equal to that of other western economies such as Sweden, the UK, France and Germany. The largest sector of the economy is services at 65.7 percent, followed by manufacturing and refining at 31.4 percent. Primary production is low at 2.9 percent, reflecting the fact that Finland is a resource-poor country.[29] With respect to foreign trade, the key economic sector is manufacturing. The largest industries[30] are electronics (21.6 percent), machinery, vehicles and other engineered metal products (21.1 percent), forest industry (13.1 percent), and chemicals (10.9 percent). International trade is important, with exports equalling almost one-third of GDP. Except for timber and several minerals, Finland depends on imports of raw materials, energy and some components for manufactured goods.

  Because of the northern climate, agricultural development is limited to maintaining self-sufficiency. Forestry, an important export earner, provides a secondary occupation for the rural population.

  Finland was one of the eleven countries joining the euro monetary system (EMU) on January 1, 1999. The national currency markka (FIM), in use since 1860, was withdrawn and replaced by the euro (EUR) at the beginning of 2002 (see Finnish euro coins).

  The World Economic Forum has declared Finland to be the most competitive country in the world for three consecutive years (2003–2005) and four times since 2002.[31] In recent years there has been national focus on innovation and research and development, with special emphasis on information technology.[32] Nokia, the telecommunications company, is generally regarded as the single most significant cause of Finland's success.

Taken from wikipedia.org