Finland "in general"

In order to get an easy access, I have put the most important facts about the country, the inhabitants and the climate on this page.

Finland briefly

Finland is situated in the high north of Europe and it is ranked often among the Scandinavian countries, although a small part of the country belongs to the Scandinavian peninsula. Finland is called the waters-richest country of the earth. You can find there approx. 187,888 lakes and hundreds of rivers with 179.584 islands.		Fakten, Fakten, Fakten... Capital: Helsinki Population: 5.14 mill. Saunoas: 1.6 mill. Area: 338,145 sq.km 10% of the country is covered by water, 69% by trees

Finland spreads nearly the same area than Germany, but it has only around 5.1 millions inhabitants (approx. 6% of the German number of inhabitants) - in Finland, there are approximately 17 inhabitants per square km (in Germany approx. 228 inhabitants per square km). The areas north of 61st Degree of latitude cover two thirds of Finland's total area, but you can find there only one fifth of the population, so that there live about five people on a square kilometer. The fact that the largest part of the population lives in the southern regions, is established primarily by the climate conditions.

Population

The Finns are considered as a calm, reserved and honest people, that has been able to make themselves a name in the areas technology, portable radio, furniture and shipbuilding. It is also a very sporty nation, which brought Formela 1 driver and ski athletics out. A well-known Finnish artist is the composer Jean Sibelius (1865-1957).

93,5% of the inhabitant of "Suomi" are Finns. Approximately 17,000 people are Samen, which live usually in Lappland. Language scientists assume that the Samen separated from a finnougrish trunk, which had already immigrated before the actual Finn came to the country and that had been pushed going to the north later. Investigations resulted in that the Samish language and Finnish have got a clear relationship. The Roma mostly living in south Finland (about 5500 people) represent another group of population.

Climate

The climate of Finland is determined by its situation between Central Europe in the south, the polar areas in the north as well as by the North Atlantic bordering in the west and the nearness of the euro-asiatish continent in the east. South Finland is situated on the same northern latitude, on which on the North American opposite coast the icy Labrador lies. Finland shows strongly continental climate characteristics, which result from the shield against the North Atlantic and the opening for continental winds from the east. The average temperature varies in the yearly process between 20 and 30 degrees celsius. You can see on the climate map that the climate becomes more continental toward the north: Inari - the continentality center of Scandinavia - shows an annual variation in temperature of 26,7 degrees celsius and an amount of precipitation of 405 mm per year. The vegetation period (days with average temperature of over 5 degrees celsius), which in the south amounts to 175 days, decreases here to 120 days; thus the northern borders of the cultivation of grain has been passed.

The Baltic Sea hardly contributes to moderate the continental climate. In the summer, the Baltic Sea is colder than the rapidly warmed up countryside and behaves than like the many Finnish lakes refreshingly to the environment, but in the winter it is freezen regularly. In the north the Bottni sea bosom is freezen up to six months, and therefore behaves climatically like the snowcapped countryside - indeed frost-aggravatingly. The snow remains lying about 20 days in the south of the		country, in the high north up to 250 days (one year = 365 days).

A characteristic element among the climate of Finland are the lighting times, which result from the situation in high geographical latitudes. In no other place of the earth people put their habitat forward so far towards the north pole. Particularly here to call are the midnight sun (north of the polar circle there is no sun set on the 21st June) and the polar night. The polar night lasts 178 days; if the dawn is included also, the length of the polar night at the pole shortens on (only) 86 days. With 70 degrees northern latitude changes the dawn directly between 22 November and 20 January into the dusk; instead of the day there is only a two-hour dawn (note: with 66,3 degrees northern latitude is the polar circle).