Portal:Finland
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The Finland Portal
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Finland, officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It borders Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of Bothnia to the west and the Gulf of Finland to the south, opposite Estonia. Finland covers an area of 338,145 square kilometres (130,559 sq mi) and has a population of 5.6 million. Helsinki is the capital and largest city. The vast majority of the population are ethnic Finns. The official languages are Finnish and Swedish, of which 84.9 percent of the population speak the first as their mother tongue and 5.1 percent the latter. Finland's climate varies from humid continental in the south to boreal in the north. The land cover is predominantly boreal forest biome, with more than 180,000 recorded lakes.
Finland was first settled around 9000 BC after the last Ice Age. During the Stone Age, various cultures emerged, distinguished by different styles of ceramics. The Bronze Age and Iron Ages were marked by contacts with other cultures in Fennoscandia and the Baltic region. From the late 13th century, Finland became part of the Swedish Empire as a result of the Northern Crusades. In 1809, as a result of the Finnish War, Finland was captured from Sweden and became a Grand Duchy of Finland, an autonomous state ruled by the Russian Empire. During this period, Finnish art flourished and the idea of full independence began to take hold. In 1906, Finland became the first European state to grant universal suffrage, and the first in the world to give all adult citizens the right to run for public office. Following the Russian Revolution of 1917, Finland declared its full independence. In 1918 the young nation was divided by the Finnish Civil War. During World War II, Finland fought against the Soviet Union in the Winter War and the Continuation War, and later against Nazi Germany in the Lapland War. As a result, it lost parts of its territory but retained its independence. (Full article...)
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Did you know (auto-generated)
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/44/Nuvola_apps_filetypes.svg/47px-Nuvola_apps_filetypes.svg.png)
- ... that records of transgender people in Finland stretch back to the 19th century?
- ... that a song about an esports team went viral in Finland?
- ... that Plevna in Tampere, Finland, was the first building in the Nordic countries and the Russian Empire (of which Finland was part at the time) to be lit by electric lights?
- ... that Finnish-American model Selene Mahri married three millionaires and is credited with inventing the saying "Marriage is a question of give and take. You give. I take"?
- ... that Matti Lehtinen, a baritone of the Finnish National Opera and professor of singing at the Sibelius Academy, was the voice of God at age 93?
- ... that the Finnish 7th Division was formed in 1940 by renumbering another unit to make it appear to the Soviets that it had been replaced with fresh troops?
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More did you know - show different entries
- ...that the cruiseferry M/S Nordlandia (originally M/S Olau Hollandia) was built to be NATO-compatible, so that she could easily be converted to a troopship?
- ...that Thomas, the first known Bishop of Finland, resigned after confessing to torture and forgery?
- ...that the Finnish-Novgorodian wars only ended with the Swedish conquest of Finland in 1249, resulting in the Swedish–Novgorodian Wars?
- ...the crash of Aero Flight 311, which claimed the lives of all 25 people on board, was the worst aviation accident ever to occur in Finland?
- ...that some areas of the Finnish Lakeland have up to 1,000 lakes per 100 km²?
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The Wood Nymph (Swedish: Skogsrået; subtitled ballade pour l'orchestre), Op. 15, is a programmatic tone poem for orchestra composed in 1894 and 1895 by the Finnish composer Jean Sibelius. The ballade, which premiered on 17 April 1895 in Helsinki, Finland, with Sibelius conducting, follows the Swedish writer Viktor Rydberg's 1882 poem of the same title, in which a young man, Björn, wanders into the forest and is seduced and driven to despair by a skogsrå, or wood nymph. Organizationally, the tone poem consists of four informal sections, each of which corresponds to one of the poem's four stanzas and evokes the mood of a particular episode: first, heroic vigor; second, frenetic activity; third, sensual love; and fourth, inconsolable grief.
The Wood Nymph was performed three more times that decade, then, at the composer's request, once more in 1936. Never published, the ballade had been thought to be comparable to insubstantial works and juvenilia which Sibelius had suppressed until the Finnish musicologist Kari Kilpeläinen 'rediscovered' the manuscript in the University of Helsinki archives, "[catching] Finland, and the musical world, by surprise". Osmo Vänskä and the Lahti Symphony Orchestra gave the ballade its modern-day 'premiere' on 9 February 1996. Although the score had been effectively 'lost' for sixty years, its thematic material had been known in abridged form via a melodrama for narrator, piano, two horns, and strings. Sibelius probably arranged the melodrama from the tone poem, although he claimed the opposite. Some critics, while admitting the beauty of the musical ideas, have faulted Sibelius for over-reliance on the source material's narrative and lack of the rigorously unified structure that characterized his later output, whereas others, such as Veijo Murtomäki [et; fi], have hailed it as a "masterpiece" worthy of ranking amongst Sibelius's greatest orchestral works. (Full article...)General images
- Image 2A group of Finnish soldiers operating a Bofors gun during the Continuation War in 1943 (from History of Finland)
- Image 4Signing the Helsinki Accords are the West German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt, East Germany's leader Erich Honecker, US president Gerald Ford and the Austrian chancellor Bruno Kreisky (from History of Finland)
- Image 5Janne Ahonen is considered one of the best and most successful currently active ski jumpers. (from Culture of Finland)
- Image 6People gathered in the Senate Square for a demonstration against the February Manifesto in March 1899. (from History of Finland)
- Image 7The area of Finland in the years 1920–1940. The 1935 county and municipality division on the map. (from History of Finland)
- Image 8The Swedish empire at its largest. Most of present-day Finland was part of Sweden proper, rike, shown in dark green. (from History of Finland)
- Image 10Kreeta Haapasalo Playing the Kantele in a Peasant Cottage (1868), by Robert Wilhelm Ekman (from History of Finland)
- Image 11Women in sauna with Vihtas
- Image 12Northern Europe in 814 (from History of Finland)
- Image 13Battle of Gangut (Hanko) was part of the Great Northern War during 1700–1721. (from History of Finland)
- Image 162007 Formula One World Champion Kimi Räikkönen celebrating victory at the 2007 Brazilian Grand Prix (from Culture of Finland)
- Image 21A summer cottage (mökki) on a lake island (from Culture of Finland)
- Image 22Lapua Movement supporters beating the "red officer" Eino Nieminen in front of the Vaasa courthouse during the 4 June 1930 riot. (from History of Finland)
- Image 23The part of Finland controlled by the Reds at its largest in February–March 1918 (from History of Finland)
- Image 25Map of Finnish areas ceded to the Soviet Union in 1944, after the Continuation War (from History of Finland)
- Image 27This 1825 map of the Grand Duchy of Finland is from a larger work, geographical atlas of the Russian Empire. (from History of Finland)
- Image 28Grand Duchy of Finland, 75 kopek assignat (1824) (from History of Finland)
- Image 31Eero Järnefelt, Burning the Brushwood, 1893 (from History of Finland)
- Image 32The first government of independent Finland. P. E. Svinhufvud, the first Prime Minister of Finland, sitting at the head of the table. (from History of Finland)
- Image 35Jussipaita (transl. Jussi sweater); a traditional sweater from the Finnish region of Southern Ostrobothnia (from Culture of Finland)
- Image 38Homann's map of the Scandinavian Peninsula and Fennoscandia with their surrounding territories: northern Germany, northern Poland, the Baltic region, Livonia, Belarus, and parts of Northwest Russia. Johann Baptist Homann (1664–1724) was a German geographer and cartographer; map dated around 1730. (from History of Finland)
- Image 39The decision of the Soviet of the People's Comissars' to recognise Finnish independence, signed by Vladimir Lenin, Leon Trotsky, Grigory Petrovsky, Joseph Stalin, Isaac Steinberg, Vladimir Karelin, and Alexander Schlichter (from History of Finland)
- Image 41Mikael Agricola hands over the Finnish Translation of the New Testament to King Gustav Wasa. (from History of Finland)
- Image 42In the middle is the patron saint of Finland, Saint Henry, on the right side of him is Bishop Konrad Bitz and on the left is Dean Magnus Stjernkors; from Missale Aboense (1488) (from History of Finland)
- Image 43Finland Ostrobothnia regiment uniforms in 1705 (from History of Finland)
- Image 44The Finnish composer Jean Sibelius (1865–1957), a significant figure in the history of classical music (from Culture of Finland)
- Image 47The area controlled by Finland at its largest, in 1942 (from History of Finland)
- Image 49Marshal of Finland Carl Gustaf Emil Mannerheim visit in Germany, 1942 (from History of Finland)
- Image 50S/S Urania in Hanko harbor in 1893, with 509 emigrants on board on their way to America (from History of Finland)
- Image 52Midsummer bonfire (kokko) in Mäntsälä (from Culture of Finland)
- Image 54Linus Torvalds, a famous Fennoswede software engineer, best known for initiating the development of the Linux kernel (from Culture of Finland)
- Image 56Stone Age stone axe engraved with human face found from Kiuruvesi. (from History of Finland)
- Image 57Pieces of the Antrea Net (8,300 BC), the oldest-known fishing net in the world. (from History of Finland)
- Image 59Wehrmacht soldiers with a local Sámi reindeer herder, Lappland, Sodankylä, Finland 1942 (from History of Finland)
- Image 60Finnish folk dancers in a 1907 postcard sent from Mustamäki, Finland (from Culture of Finland)
- Image 61Captain Aarne Juutilainen at the front at Kollaa during the Winter War (from History of Finland)
- Image 62A peasant girl and a woman in traditional dress from Ruokolahti, eastern Finland, as depicted by Severin Falkman in 1882 (from Culture of Finland)
- Image 63A triptych by Akseli Gallen-Kallela, depicting the Aino Story of Kalevala on three panes (from Culture of Finland)
- Image 67The public education system founded during earlier Swedish rule turned Finland and Estonia into the two most literate provinces of Russian Empire (map of 1897 census literacy data) (from History of Finland)
- Image 68Prehistoric red ochre painted rock art of moose, human figures, and boats in Astuvansalmi, Finland, from ca. 3800–2200 BC (from Culture of Finland)
- Image 69Erkki Karu, one of the pioneers of the Finnish cinema, with cinematographer Eino Kari in 1927 (from Culture of Finland)
- Image 72Pekka Halonen's painting "against persecutors" from 1896 depicts the warfare of the ancient Finns. (from History of Finland)
- Image 74Imagery collage of Birger Jarl conquering Häme and the construction of Häme Castle (from History of Finland)
In the news
- 22 May 2024 – Russia–NATO relations
- The Russian Ministry of Defence proposes to unilaterally adjust Russia's maritime border in the Baltic Sea, prompting comments of concern made by Baltic members of NATO, including Finland and Lithuania. The Ministry of Defense later retracts the proposal. (Reuters) (BBC News)
- 2 April 2024 – Viertola school shooting
- A student is killed and two others are injured in a shooting at a school in Vantaa, Uusimaa, Finland. A 12-year-old student is detained. (AP) (Yle)
- 1 March 2024 – 2024 Finnish presidential election
- Alexander Stubb is sworn in as the 13th President of Finland. (Reuters)
- 11 February 2024 – 2024 Finnish presidential election
- Alexander Stubb is elected President of Finland with 51.6% of the vote.(Yle)
- 27 January 2024 – Israel–Hamas war
- The United Kingdom, United States, Australia, Italy, Canada, Finland, the Netherlands, Switzerland, and Germany suspend humanitarian aid to UNRWA over allegations that some UNRWA staff members were involved in the Hamas-led attack on Israel. (BBC News) (CBS News)
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