Finland
Finland (officially Republic of Finland) is a country in Northern Europe, with its capital at Helsinki, and is home to roughly 5.6M people.
Its official languages are Finnish, Swedish; the currency in circulation is Euro (€); people from here are called Finnish.
- »Finland has around 188,000 lakes and a similar number of islands.
- »In the far north the sun does not set for weeks in summer, nor rise for weeks in winter.
Finland straddles the Arctic Circle.
Finland touches three neighbours: Norway to the west, Russia to the northeast and Sweden to the west. Directions run from one centre to the other.
Helsinki was made capital in 1812 partly because it was further from Stockholm than Turku, reducing Swedish influence. Its neoclassical centre was designed to resemble St Petersburg.
330,802 km² (127,723 sq mi), 64th largest of 198 countries and territories on file, almost exactly the size of Vietnam.
Population 5,619,911, 116th of 198 on file. That averages 17 per km² (44 per sq mi).
The Nordic cross in blue for the country's thousands of lakes, white for its snow. Adopted in 1918, months after independence from Russia.