Finland - geography
Finland is with 15 residents per. km2 one of Europe's most
sparsely populated countries; only Iceland and Norway are more sparsely
populated. The southern, coastal regions are fairly densely populated, while
large areas in northern Finland are completely dominated by mighty and largely
uninhabited forests. In between lies Sølandet with the thousands of large and
small lakes which are filled with islands that give them the character of inner
archipelagos.
Population
Since the middle of the 1700's, when the population numbered almost half a
million, the population has grown tenfold. Population growth shows large
periodic fluctuations. 1880-1905 there was a large emigration to North America,
and in 1945 425,000 Finns were relocated from the territories that were ceded to
the Soviet Union at the conclusion of the Second World War. It was a subsidy of
11% of the then population, which was now to be housed in the Rest of
Finland. The period 1960-70 was again marked by great emigration, when 142,000
Finns traveled out to look for work, a large part to Sweden. In the 1990's,
despite high unemployment in the forest and agricultural regions, there is an
incipient shortage of labor for the urban industries. Retraining and relocation
of unemployed forest workers and farmers from the northern and inland districts
has proved to be a difficult and often insurmountable task, but has promoted a
continued population distortion of the country with migration from north to
south. The capital region and other growth centers are now recruiting
well-educated labor abroad; The number of foreigners, which has traditionally
been low in Finland, has grown strongly in recent years and now accounts for
2.2% of the population.
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Do you know how many people there are in Finland? Check this site to see
population pyramid and resident density about this country.
The Finnish-speaking population is probably a mixture of the original Sami
with later immigrant Baltic Sea Finns as well as Indo-Europeans who came via the
Baltics and Scandinavia in the Bronze Age. The Sami, who originally lived over
most of Finland, were eventually displaced to the north of the Arctic
Circle. The Swedish-speaking population, as in the 1800's. amounted to
approximately 15%, now amounts to only 5.5%. It originates partly from Swedes who
immigrated in the period 1000-1300, and from Finns who for Swedish reasons
became Swedish-speaking.
Finnish and Swedish are both official languages. In addition, Sami, which is
also the official language within the Sami so-called homeland, where
approximately 4000 Sami live. De approximately 10,000 gypsies who have been a minority in the
country for a little over 500 years have now also achieved a constitutionally
protected position for their language, Romani. The Swedish-speakers live mainly
in the southwestern coastal area and on the Åland Islands. On the Finnish
mainland, the linguistic conditions are regulated so that if a minority in a
municipality is over 8% or at least 3000 people, the municipality is
bilingual. However, according to the new language law, a municipality can choose
to maintain the status of bilingual, even if these requirements are no longer
met. The majority of Swedes in Finland live in 44 bilingual municipalities with
either a Finnish or Swedish majority; 19 out of a total of 431 municipalities
are monolingual Swedish. Bilingual municipalities and some other localities have
both Finnish and Swedish names; where the majority name is always mentioned
first. This principle is followed in this presentation.
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Industries
Only 7% of the area is used for agriculture, while 70% is forest. The
mechanization of both the agricultural and forestry industries has meant that
employment has declined, and less than 5% of the labor force is employed
here. As in the other developing countries, the share of industry is also
declining, while the service sector is growing strongly and now comprises two
thirds of the workforce. The women make up approximately half of the workforce.
Agriculture
Agriculture in Finland is run under difficult climatic conditions. Frost is a
latent danger throughout the early and late summer, and the growing season
(average daily temperature above 6 °C) varies from 175 days in the south to 110
days in the north. In large parts of inland Finland, the soil is a rocky, barren
moraine. The raised seabed areas along the coasts are fertile, but these plains
make up only a small part of the arable land. Despite these unfavorable natural
conditions, agriculture has always been an important factor in Finnish business,
and Finland is the northernmost country that can supply its own population with
basic products such as bread grains, meat, milk, butter, cheese and eggs. In
addition, the country has a significant export of these products to Russia.
The structure of agriculture is changing. Rationalization and specialization
have meant that an ever-increasing number of farms are run without livestock,
and that others have specialized in dairy cattle, pigs or other. In 1969, the
number of farms reached a maximum of 264,000; in 1994 it had dropped to 165,000
and in 2005 to 69,500, where it is especially the small units that disappear or
are merged. Units larger than 50 ha thus increase in numbers. It is the small
farms in northern Finland and the farms on the poor soil in Sølandet that have
been closed down at a rapid pace. Mergers of agricultural holdings include a
consequence of the age structure of the profession. Farmers are on
average. 55-60 years old (the oldest in the Nordic countries), which leads to a
large number of retirements, which often involves the sale of land. In addition,
EU support for Finnish agriculture will be reduced.
On the best soils in southern Finland, bread grains, winter and spring wheat
and rye are grown in particular. In the northern part of the coastal zone as
well as in Sølandet, barley is most important; north of this, agriculture is
mainly based on the cultivation of grass and other fodder crops. This is where
the focus of Finland's cattle breeding, both meat and dairy cattle, lies. It is
not without problems that production is so far from consumers in the large urban
areas of Southern Finland, but the natural conditions are best utilized in this
way. The special conditions that apply in the polar summer with light around the
clock, are utilized for the production of berries and vegetables of particularly
good quality. Several of the small polar farms use this niche in their struggle
to continue to maintain an economically sustainable production.
Forest
The forest occupies 70% of the area; of which almost half are pine,
one-third spruce, and one-fifth deciduous (especially birch)). Production is
increasing, but a complete mechanization of the profession has led to less than
2000 egl in 2005. forest workers left; ten years earlier the number was 4,000
and in 1985 14,000. Many forest areas have long been an important part of
agricultural land; to a large extent, they are sold off and merged, so that it
becomes possible to use large, modern forest machines rationally. Even in 2003,
the farmers owned more than 50% of the forest area, but the proportion is
decreasing year by year. In the same year, the state owned just over 37%, groups
and joint stock companies a small 8%, while the rest was in other private
ownership. State forests are found mainly in northern Finland, where 96% is
forest and bog land.
The powerful forest resources and a high quality of wood have made Finland
the world's second largest exporter of paper and board (surpassed only by
Canada). The Finns are also among the leading exporters of the other products
from the wood industry. 80-90% of the timber industry's products are exported,
but they still make up an ever smaller part of the country's total export value,
in 2005 thus 20% against 33% ten years earlier. This is due to the fact that
exports of electronics in particular have risen sharply and now account for
25%. Product development, continued mechanization and conversion to data-driven
production require large investments that only capital-rich companies can
perform. Through an ever-increasing degree of processing of wood products and
structural reorganisations of production (including through mergers), the
Finnish wood industry is improving its ability to compete internationally.
Modern forestry shows a large part of the external characteristics of
agriculture: the trees are "harvested" by clear-cutting, ie. felling of all
trees on large, total areas; then follows a careful tillage, set-aside for a few
years, drainage if necessary, planting, fertilizing, spraying against pests and
regular thinning. After 60-100 years of care, you are ready for a new
"harvest". Large logging machines take care of 80% of the tree felling, while
hand-held chainsaws do the rest. An expanded road network makes transport easy
and cheap on the shorter distances. The longer transports go per. railway or
waterway (floating via rivers and lakes) to the timber industries at the export
ports (including Kotka, Hamina, Rauma, Pori, Oulu and Kemi). In 2004, 80% of the
transport work was done by truck,
The wood industry employs 23,000 as well as 65,000 in follow-on industries
(2004). The 200 sawmills, veneer and chipboard factories are scattered
throughout Finland (raw material location), while the 90 cellulose, paper and
board factories are almost all located in the major cities of southern Finland,
at ports and on the border with Russia (market location).
Pollution damage to forests is a growing problem, especially in the southern
industrial belt and in northern Finland, which receives large amounts of sulfur
and heavy metals from the Russian mining industry on the Kola Peninsula. The
timber industry's own pollution has been significantly reduced and no longer
poses a serious danger to wildlife.
Industry
The development of industry in Finland is closely linked to the growing need
for timber, paper and cellulosein Europe after 1860. Sawmills, paper and
cellulose factories expanded throughout the country and many new ones were
built. When steam-powered saws began to be used instead of saws powered by river
watermills, a large part of the export-oriented timber industry moved to the
coastal towns. It cheapened the import of coal and the export of the wood
products. The remaining timber industries inland were connected to the largest
port cities through a well-developed railway network. This localization pattern
continues to exist, but has been supplemented by large companies in Lappeenranta
and Imatra near the Russian border to the southeast. Here is also an iron and
steel plant. This location is based on the large war damages to the Soviet Union
after World War II, which were mainly paid for with products from the wood and
iron industry.
In the case of the iron and metal industry, war damages were the prelude to a
large-scale development in the industry; both in terms of employment and
production, it now exceeds the timber industry. There are steelworks in Raahe,
Turku, Imatra and on Hanko as well as smelters and foundries. The machinery
industry is most important; here, among other things, equipment for the Finnish
and foreign wood industry as well as for water, nuclear and traditional power
plants. The production of means of transport is also considerable; ships
(especially passenger ships and icebreakers), drilling rigs, locomotives and
other railway equipment, trucks, hydraulic cranes and elevators are important
products. The electronic industry manufactures telephone exchanges, mobile
phones and televisions. Most industries are characterized by high technology and
good competitiveness in the world market.
Finland has no oil production and 80% of crude oil is imported from
Russia. Two oil refineries, in Sköldvik near Porvoo and Naantali west of Turku,
cover domestic consumption of oil products. The chemical industry is growing and
includes several large fertilizer factories located in the agricultural areas
(market location). In the past, the food industries were also here, close to
their raw materials, but many have moved closer to the markets in southern
Finland.
The Finnish textile industry is concentrated in the Tampere area and is
internationally known. On the basis of imported raw materials, skilled designers
have created a significant, exclusive and distinctive clothing industry, which
exports a very significant part of the production.
70% of industrial employment is in southern and western Finland. The focus is
on the capital region around Helsinki, which stretches from Hanko in the west
to Porvoo in the east, but also Turku, Rauma, Pori, Tampere, Lahti, Kotka and
Lappeenranta-Imatra are important industrial cities. North of this industrial
belt are Vaasa, Jyväskylä, Oulu, Kemi and at the Rovaniemi Arctic Circle, all of
which have a growing industrial sector.
Energy
A large part of Finnish industry consists of 'energy-heavy' companies, and in
addition there is consumption in the significant transport sector and a large
consumption for house heating in the long winters. Both consumption and
production of energy vary greatly from year to year; consumption depends on the
length and severity of the winter (heating), and the production at the
hydropower plants on the size of the precipitation. Finland has the largest
energy consumption per capita. population in the Nordic countries, and only
Denmark surpasses Finland in terms of CO 2emissions. In 2015, 24% of
energy consumption was covered by oil, 26% by wood-based fuel, 19% by nuclear
power, while coal and natural gas cover 8 and 6% respectively; peat has risen to
4% while hydropower has fallen to 5%. Hydropower opportunities are limited by
the moderate rainfall and the slight fall of the rivers; most developed are the
Oulu and Kemijoki in the north and Saimaa's drain Vuoksi (Imatra power plants).
Finland decided in 2002 to expand its nuclear power; In addition to the
existing four nuclear power plants, two at Loviisa and two at Olkiluoto north of
Rauma, a fifth high-performance reactor is being constructed at Olkiluoto. In
addition, Finland is in the process of switching from oil and coal to natural
gas. A branched natural gas network has been established in the industrial belt,
and it is constantly being expanded. The gas comes from Russia, but the
possibility of a transfer from Norway has been discussed.
Transport
The infrastructure is well developed with traffic arteries on a total of
470,000 km, of which 78,000 km are roads and 5,700 km of railways, and a large
network of waterways (including the important Saimaa Canal, which connects
Sølandet with the Baltic Sea for ocean-going ships). The network of domestic
flights is among the most developed in Europe. The car fleet in 2015 is just
over DKK 5 million. cars.
The large and growing concentration of population and businesses in Southern
Finland has required the expansion of motorways here, and a network of
high-speed trains connects the main cities. There are also high-speed trains
between Helsinki and St. Petersburg. Shipping is important, as the majority of
both imports and exports are transported by ship; the most important ports are
Skjöldvik, Helsinki, Kotka and Naantali. Ferry traffic across the Baltic Sea to
Sweden and Estonia is also very significant; here, Turku and Mariehamn in the
Åland Islands also play an important role. In the long and often snowy winters,
a modern icebreaker fleet and a lot of snow plows keep the traffic going.
Leisure and tourism
The mighty forests and the thousands of lakes and islands are places where
the Finns cultivate both loneliness and social relations. Sports and outdoor
life play a very big role, not least all kinds of winter events. The country is
visited by an increasing, but still quite limited number of actual tourists, who
are attracted by the cities' exciting architecture and the large forest and lake
areas with beautifully situated, highly classified campsites. Large ferries,
sailing hotels with pedestrian environments, transport a large number of
short-term tourists to Mariehamn, Turku and Helsinki, a traffic which, however,
has decreased after Finland's and Sweden's accession to the EU, which has
reduced the importance of alcohol sales.
Geology
Most of Finland's underground belongs to the Baltic Shield from the
Precambrian. Through mountain range folds, the existing continent was penetrated
by numerous horizontal and vertical faults, where basalt penetrated and
solidified in several of the fault lines. For approximately 2200 mio. years ago there
was a lively volcanic activity on the then southern continental shelf, whereby
the formation of Outokumputhe copper deposit and other ores were initiated. In
the subsequent period (2050-1700 million years ago) two mountain range folds
occurred, the Sveco-Phoenician and the Kola-Karelian, during which the ore
deposits in the belt from Enonkoski via Outokumpu, Pyhäsalmi and Vihanti to Kemi
got their current design. The chromium deposit at Kemi is among the most
important in Europe, and Finland is one of the continent's largest producers of
copper and nickel.
The bedrock is composed of igneous and metamorphic rocks, especially granites
and crystalline shales, with gneisses as the dominant ones. Since the rocks do
not decompose as quickly, the most resistant ones will form rocky sections that
protrude. The crustal movements associated with the alpine folding in the
Tertiary manifested themselves in Finland as a large number of fractures and
fissures as well as vertical displacements. Thus, the northwestern part of the
Enontekiö area was raised, and it is now the country's only real mountain area
with mountain peaks over 1000 m, Halti (1328 m), Finland's highest point,
and Saana (1029 m). During this period, the area around Lake Inari in northern
Finland was sunk.
The countryside
The main features of the landscape are determined by the ancient bedrock, but
the details are most often created by the moraine deposits from the last ice
age, which in Finland ended 9000-10,000 years ago. The moraine layer is
generally 2-5 m thick, but in the edge moraine ridges up to 100 m as in the
largest and southernmost of the Salpausselkä edge moraines, which stretches
600-700 km through southern Finland from Hanko in the west to Joensuu in the
east. In many places, completely bare, ice-scraped bedrock protrudes. A very
common landscape feature is the elongated and narrow hill systems that are up to
70 m high and several hundred km long. The best known is Punkaharju near
Savonlinna. Another widespread ice age formation is the drumlin landscapes with
rows of 20-40 m high and 1-2 km long, narrow and softly shaped, parallel
hills. They are known from Sølandet between Mikkeli and Kuopio.
As the huge ice cap moved across the substrate, it hollowed out the bedrock
where this was less resistant. These depressions contain most of Finland's more
than 187,000 lakes (over 500 m 2). Lakes with the same drain to the
sea form a lake system. Among the largest are the Vuoksi, Kymi and Paatselvenes
lake systems with resp. 22,560, 12,460 and 22,800 lakes. Each of the three has a
large central lake: Saimaa, Päijänne and Inari. In relation to the size of the
country, Finland has more lakes than any other country in the world. In the
lakes there are over 98,000 islands larger than 100 m 2.
The colossal weight of the ice sheet pushed the substrate down, and after the
melting of the ice, the land has risen and continues to do so; at the Gulf of
Finland 3 mm per. years, rising to 9 mm in the northern part of the Gulf of
Bothnia. Land uplift means that Finland's area will increase by 10 km2 per
year; the coast moves outwards, and new skerries and islands emerge from the
sea. The Finnish archipelago coast now has approximately 81,000 islands incl. The
Åland Islands.
Climate
Due to the large extent of the country from north to south and due to the
location of Western and Eastern Finland at resp. The Baltic Sea and the greater
Eurasian Continent, there are significant climate differences between the
regions. In relation to the country's location on the globe, the climate must
generally be described as mild with an annual average temperature of 6 °C; The
Baltic Sea, the many lakes and not least warm, westerly winds soften the
climate. The continental air currents from east and south bring cold and dry air
to Finland in winter and strong heat in summer. The precipitation in this
temperate mainland climate is evenly distributed throughout the year; however,
the winters are a little less. Farthest to the north there is almost two months
of polar darkness in winter and 70 days of midnight sun in summer.
Finland - language
Finland is officially bilingual with the national languages
Finnish and Swedish. approximately 4.86 million Finns are registered with Finnish
as their mother tongue, while approximately 5.39% (291,000) in 2012 are registered
with Swedish as their mother tongue. According to an international convention
from 1920, however, Åland is monolingually Swedish. In Finland itself, the
Swedish-speaking areas are typically the coastal country around Turku (Turku)
and in Ostrobothnia (Pohjanmaa) and Uusimaa (Uusimaa). However, it is not
possible to be registered as a bilingual, and for the same reason this group is
not recorded. However, it is possible to write a mother tongue by registering it
with the Finnish Population Register.
Among the official minority languages are the three Sami languages,
Northern Sami, Inari Sami and Skolt Sami (a total of approximately 1900)
(2012), Romani (approximately 5000), Yiddish, Tatar (166), the sign languages and Old
Russian. In addition, 5,000 and 12,000 speak Karelian in Finland, which became
the official minority language in 2012, although it is only the mother tongue of
approximately 100 people.
The rights of Swedish-speakers, most recently confirmed by a revision of the
Language Act from 1922, which came into force in 2004, include the right to
use Swedish in contact with state authorities and authorities in municipalities
with at least 8% or 3,000 residents with Swedish as their mother
tongue. However, this is made more difficult in practice by the fact that
Swedish skills among the Finnish-speakers are declining, not least as a result
of down-prioritization of Swedish in the education system. From 2004, Swedish is
thus no longer a compulsory subject for high school students. In return, there
are now requirements for public employees in the Act on the language skills
required of public employeesin order to meet the language requirements. In
addition, state administrations and companies must, according to the Language
Act, provide information in both Finnish and Swedish, e.g. on their websites.
Since 1992, the Sami languages have had official status in the Sami
homelands, ie. Enontekiö, Inari and Utsjoki municipalities as well as in the
northern part of Sodankylä Municipality, which gives the Sami the right to use
their mother tongue for errands at the administrations and in the hospitals. In
some schools in Inari and Utsjoki, Sami is mainly the language of instruction,
just as it is possible to take a matriculation examination in Northern
Sami. Since 2013, the Sami have been able to register for registration with
Southern Sami, Inari Sami, Kildin Sami, Skolt Sami, Luleå Sami and Northern Sami
as mother tongues in the Finnish Population Register.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union and after the Baltic countries became
independent in 1991, the number of Russian and Estonian speakers in Finland has
increased significantly as a result of immigration, so that Russian (approximately
62,500) and Estonian (approximately 38,000) (2012) are as foreign mother tongue become
resp. the third and fourth largest language after Finnish and Swedish.
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