60 Fun Facts About Finland

Finland shares land borders with Sweden, Norway and which other country?

The Russian border runs about 1,300 km along Finland's entire eastern flank, which is why NATO's land frontier with Russia more than doubled when Finland joined.

Which two languages are Finland's official national languages?

Swedish is the mother tongue of only about 5% of Finns, yet it keeps equal legal status, and street signs in bilingual towns carry both languages.

Roughly how many recorded lakes does Finland have?

Lakes, rivers and ponds cover about a tenth of the country, and another 78% is forest, leaving very little farmland.

Lake Saimaa, Finland's largest lake, is the only home of which endangered animal?

The Saimaa ringed seal has been cut off from the sea for around 9,500 years, since the land rose after the last ice age, and only about 500 remain.

Which Finnish company, rooted in an 1865 mill, was the world's largest mobile phone vendor from 1998?

The company took its name from a second mill by the town of Nokia in 1871, and spent decades making rubber boots, tyres and cables before phones.

What is the highest point in Finland, at 1,324 metres?

Halti's summit is actually just over the border in Norway; the highest peak entirely inside Finland is neighbouring Ridnitšohkka, eight metres lower.

In which year did Finland declare its independence?

The declaration came on 6 December 1917, weeks after the Bolshevik revolution, and 6 December is still Finland's Independence Day.

Which arm of the Baltic Sea separates the country's south coast from Estonia?

Helsinki and Tallinn face each other across it, roughly 80 km apart, and fast ferries link the two capitals in about two hours.

Finnish Lapland promotes itself as the official hometown of which famous figure, with a village in Rovaniemi?

Rovaniemi was declared Santa's official hometown in 1980, and the village sits right on the Arctic Circle so visitors can step across the line.

In December 2020, Finnish sauna culture was inscribed on which UNESCO list?

Saunas turn up in apartments, corporate headquarters, the Parliament House and even 1,400 metres underground in the Pyhäsalmi Mine.

What is the national sport of Finland?

Pesäpallo is a Finnish take on baseball in which the pitcher lobs the ball straight up beside the batter, though ice hockey draws far bigger crowds.

By what nickname is Teemu Selänne, the highest-scoring Finn in NHL history, known?

His 76 goals as a rookie for the Winnipeg Jets in 1992–93 remain the NHL record for a first-year player.

In which year did Finland formally become a member of NATO?

Public support flipped within weeks of Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine, and parliament voted 188–8 for membership in May that year.

What was Finland's currency before it adopted the euro?

The markka was introduced in 1865 while Finland was still a Russian grand duchy, a move that strengthened its autonomy from St Petersburg.

In which year did Finland first top the UN World Happiness Report?

Finland had already been in the top five every year since 2012 before beginning a multi-year run at number one.

Which monster-masked rock band gave Finland its only Eurovision Song Contest win, in 2006?

Frontman Mr Lordi makes the band's costumes himself and redesigns them for every album; the winning song was Hard Rock Hallelujah.

Which Finnish writer and illustrator created the Moomins?

Jansson wrote in Swedish, and the first book, The Moomins and the Great Flood, appeared in 1945 in the shadow of the war.

Which Finnish studio created Angry Birds, the 2009 game that saved the company from bankruptcy?

The birds were designed by Jaakko Iisalo, and the franchise later spawned two feature films and a Sega takeover of the studio.

Which Finnish-born software engineer created both the Linux kernel and the version control system Git?

He began Linux in 1991 as a University of Helsinki student after buying an Intel 386 PC, and won the Millennium Technology Prize for it in 2012.

'Finland Awakens', the final tableau of an 1899 pageant, became which Sibelius tone poem?

Its hymn section later gained words and is often treated as an unofficial second national anthem.

What is Finland's national epic, compiled by Elias Lönnrot and published in 1835?

Lönnrot was a doctor who made eleven collecting trips over fifteen years; the epic later influenced Tolkien's legendarium.

Which Finnish company, founded in 1649, is best known for its orange-handled scissors?

The first orange pair was made in 1967 after prototypes in black, red, green and orange; the company started as an ironworks that was forbidden to make cannons.

Which future first lady bought eight Marimekko dresses and wore them through the 1960 campaign?

Marimekko's most famous print, Maija Isola's Unikko poppy, did not even exist yet; it arrived in 1964.

Which country launched the Winter War against Finland on 30 November 1939?

The unprovoked attack got the aggressor expelled from the League of Nations, and Finland kept its independence at the cost of about 9% of its territory.

By what nickname is Finnish Winter War sniper Simo Häyhä best known?

He preferred iron sights to a scope so his head stayed lower and no lens could glint in the snow.

What did Finns sarcastically call Soviet cluster bombs, mocking the foreign minister's claim they were dropping food?

The petrol-bottle weapon used against tanks got its matching name as 'a drink to go with his food parcels', which is where the term Molotov cocktail comes from.

In 1906 Finland became the first country in Europe to do what?

It was also the first country anywhere to let every adult citizen stand for office, and 19 women were elected to the first parliament in 1907.

Which Finnish city hosted the 1952 Summer Olympics?

The Games had been awarded to the city for 1940 but were cancelled by the war; Paavo Nurmi lit the cauldron in 1952.

Which autonomous and demilitarised Finnish island region has Swedish as its sole official language?

The League of Nations settled a tug-of-war between Finland and Sweden in 1921 by confirming Finnish sovereignty with wide autonomy for the islanders.

How many Olympic gold medals did the 'Flying Finn' Paavo Nurmi win?

At the 1924 Paris Games he won the 1,500 m and 5,000 m finals within about an hour of each other, running with a stopwatch in his hand.

Kimi Räikkönen won the 2007 Formula One World Drivers' Championship driving for which team?

He beat Alonso and Hamilton by a single point, and Finland has the most F1 world titles per capita thanks to him, Häkkinen and Rosberg.

Which bird, Finland's national bird since 1981, appears on the Finnish one-euro coin?

The Swan of Tuonela in Finnish myth glides on the river of the underworld, which is why the bird carries such weight in the national imagination.

About 90% of the buildings in Rovaniemi were destroyed in 1944 by which retreating force?

After the armistice with Moscow, Finland had to expel its former German ally, and the Lapland War that followed left the city a scorched ruin.

What do the winners of the Wife Carrying World Championship in Sonkajärvi traditionally receive?

The course is 253.5 metres with two dry obstacles and a water pit, and the carried partner does not have to be anyone's actual wife.

Finland has the world's second-highest per-capita consumption of which drink?

Finnish collective agreements guarantee coffee breaks at work, and the light-roast style there is much milder than Italian espresso.

The Karelian pasty is traditionally a thin crust of which grain wrapped around a rice filling?

They have held EU traditional speciality guaranteed status since 2003, so a maker who strays from the recipe must call them 'rice pasties' instead.

Which chemical compound gives Finnish salmiakki liquorice its sharp, salty taste?

The same compound flavours Salmiakki Koskenkorva, a black liquorice-vodka liqueur.

The Finnish word 'sisu' is usually translated as what?

Finns treat it as their national character trait, and a 2022 action film named after it became the most successful Finnish movie ever at the US box office.

The standard 1849 edition of Finland's national epic is divided into how many runot, or cantos?

It runs to 22,795 verses, almost double the 'Old Kalevala' of 1835.

What is the name of Jean Sibelius's home near Lake Tuusula, where he lived from 1904 until his death?

It was named for his wife Aino, and the couple raised six daughters there during the composer's most productive years.

What kind of business was Nokia when it was founded in 1865?

Mining engineer Fredrik Idestam built it on the Tammerkoski rapids near Tampere; rubber and cables came later through mergers.

Alvar Aalto first won worldwide attention with which tuberculosis hospital, completed in 1932?

Aalto designed everything down to the patients' bent-plywood chairs, and the splayed-wing plan owed a debt to a Dutch sanatorium he had visited.

Which state was the first to recognise Finnish independence, on 4 January 1918?

Lenin's government signed off within a month, and a bitter civil war between Reds and Whites broke out in Finland weeks later.

By what name was the sea fortress of Suomenlinna known when Sweden built it in the 18th century?

Its Finnish name was Viapori until 1918; the fortress spreads across several islands at the mouth of the capital's harbour and is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

The Cold War term 'Finlandisation' was coined by the press of which country?

President Urho Kekkonen ran relations with Moscow almost single-handedly from 1956 to 1982, and Finns still bristle at the word.

Who was elected in 2000 as Finland's first female president?

She served two six-year terms; Sanna Marin later became prime minister, not president, in 2019.

Which former Finnish president was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2008?

He was honoured for three decades of peace mediation from Namibia to Kosovo and Aceh.

In Finland, 'jokaisenoikeus' (everyone's right) is the legal name for what?

It lets anyone walk, camp briefly and pick berries or mushrooms almost anywhere, and it survives in its purest form in the Nordic countries and Estonia.

According to the popular explanation, the blue of the Finnish flag stands for the sky and what else?

The blue-cross design was first flown by a Helsinki yacht club in 1861, decades before it became the national flag in 1918.

How many silver roses surround the crowned lion on Finland's coat of arms?

Nobody knows what they mean; the claim that they stand for nine historical provinces has no scholarly support.

By which nickname is the Finnish capital, built across a peninsula and 315 islands, romantically known?

The city was founded by Gustav Vasa in 1550 to rival Tallinn across the water and only became the capital in 1812.

How many distinct Sámi languages are spoken in Finland?

Northern, Inari and Skolt Sámi all have official status in parts of Lapland, though only about a quarter of Finland's 10,000-plus Sámi speak one as a mother tongue.

'Juhannus' is the Finnish name for which holiday?

Cities empty as Finns head to lakeside cottages for bonfires and saunas under a sun that barely sets.

What share of its territory did Finland cede under the 1940 treaty that ended the Winter War?

Some 400,000 Karelians were evacuated westward, and Finland's second city Vyborg was lost for good after the Continuation War.

Approximately what is the population of Finland?

That gives it the lowest population density in the European Union, and only Norway and Iceland are sparser in all of Europe.

In 1812, Alexander I moved the Finnish capital away from which city, closer to St Petersburg?

He wanted the capital further from Swedish influence and closer to St Petersburg; the country's only university followed after Turku's great fire of 1827.

Which Swedish king founded Helsinki in 1555?

In the same century, bishop Mikael Agricola published the first written works in Finnish.

How many members sit in Finland's unicameral parliament, the Eduskunta?

It is elected for four-year terms by the proportional D'Hondt method, and its acts are not subject to judicial review.

Who took office as President of Finland on 1 March 2024?

Finnish presidents are directly elected via runoff voting and may serve at most two consecutive six-year terms.

Roughly what share of Finland's energy comes from its five privately owned nuclear reactors?

Three reactors are at Olkiluoto and two older Soviet-designed VVER-440 units at Loviisa.