About Finland
Finland, officially the Republic of Finland (Finnish: Suomi; Swedish: Finland), is a Nordic country situated in Northern Europe. It has borders with Sweden to the west, Russia to the east, and Norway to the north, while Estonia lies to its south across the Gulf of Finland. The capital city is Helsinki.
Finland has a population of 5,302,778 people, spread over an area of 338,145 square kilometres (130,559 square miles). Finland is the eighth largest country in Europe in terms of area, with a low population density of 16 people per square kilometer, making it the most sparsely populated country in the European Union.
The majority of the population is concentrated in the southern part of the country. As their mother tongue, most Finns speak Finnish, one of the few official languages of the European Union that is not of Indo-European origin. The second official language, Swedish, is spoken natively by a 5.5 percent minority.
Formerly part of Sweden and from 1809 an autonomous Grand Duchy within the Russian Empire, Finland declared its independence in 1917. Soviet Union spurred one civil war, two wars, and a fierce political struggle during the Cold War. Today, Finland is a democratic, parliamentary republic divided to central government and several hundred municipalities, most notably Helsinki, Espoo, Tampere and Turku.
Throughout its history Finland has remained economically quite free and GDP per capita reached Japan and UK in 1970s. After Nordic economic liberalization from the late 1980s to 1990s, it has seen a bloom of high technology companies, globalization and rankings at or near the top in international comparisons of national performance such as income levels, Human Development Index and other indices of life quality.
According to the World Audit Democracy profile, Finland is the freest nation in the world in terms of civil liberties, freedom of the press, low corruption levels and high levels of political rights. Finland has strongly integrated with the Western Europe: it joined European Union in 1995 and has invested in NATO-compatibility, though it’s not a member.
Source: Wikipedia
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