Finland's(1) 338 thousand square kilometers lie in northern Europe. Beyond the coasts, it is a low plateau, which is quite swampy in the south. At the nation's extreme northwest it rises above 1,000 meters in the Kjölen(2) Mountains.
In the far north, rivers head north or northeast into Norway's(3) Finmark area on their way to the Barents Sea. Similarly a few rivers in the northeast head into Russia(4), bound for the Barents(5) Sea or the White(6) Sea. Long rivers in the north like the Tornio, along the Swedish border, and the Kemi, reach the Gulf of Bothnia, as do several shorter rivers further south. A maze of waterways, lakes and canals connects to the Gulf of Finland, usually directly, but in some cases through Russia's Lake Ladoga(7).
Some of Finland's lakes(8) are Inari, Porttipahdari Reservoir(9) and Lokan Reservoir in the north; Oulu in the center; and Pielinen, Kalla, Paijanne, Puula, Hauki and Samimaa(10) in the south.
Off Finland's southwest are numerous islands, conventionally divided into the Saaristomeri Archipelago and the Åland (or Ahvenanmaa) Islands.
More than five million people live here (2007). Almost 19 in 20 speak Finnish; and more than one in 20 Swedish. Nine in ten are Christian, almost all Evangelical Lutheran Protestants. Almost one in ten are aetheists or agnostics of Christian ancestry.
One metropolitan area exceeds a million: Helsinki(11), which has 1.2 million (2007), although less than 600 thousand are in the city proper. The city is located on a small peninsula in the Gulf of Finland that is surrounded by islands, including the Suomenlinna fortress island. Its two most famous religious buildings are the 19th century Helsinki Cathedral and the modern underground Rock Church (Tempeliaukio). Secular buildings include the neo-classical main building of the University of Helsinki, the art-nouveau central railway station and the functionalist, tower-crowned, Olympic stadium.
Finno-Permian peopls moved here from the south and east at least 3,500 years ago. During the first millenium B.C.E., Sami and proto-Finnic dialects diverged. Estonian dialects diverged from Finnish ones more recently. Christian missionaries began convergting people in the 11th century, and they switched to the Lutheran Protestant form in the 16th century. Swedes invaded the eastern Baltic Sea shores in the seventh century, and extended their rule by conquest in the 13th century.
north
east
south
southwest, and west, from the south and center
west, from the north
(1) Suomi in Finnish. The word, 'Finland', is Swedish.
(2) Translates as 'Keel' from Norwegian.
(3) Norge in Norwegian.
(4) Rossija or Rossiya in strictly transliterated Russian.
(5) Barensevo or Barencevo in transliterated Russian.
(6) Beloje Or Beloye in transliterated Russian.
(7) Ladozhskoye (or, with a diacritical on the z, Ladozskoje) in transliterated Russian.
(8) Järvi or vesi in Finnish.
(9) Tekojärvi in Finnish.
(10) Samimaa is perhaps one of Europe's ten largest lakes.
(11) Helsingfors in Swedish.