Finland, officially the Republic of Finland
(
Finnish: Suomi; Swedish: Finland
(
help
ยท
info
)
), 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 ,, people,
spread over an area of ,
square kilometres
(,
square miles
). Finland is the eighth largest country in Europe in terms of area, with a low population density of 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 other official language,
Swedish
, is spoken natively by a
. percent
minority.
Formerly part of Sweden and from
an autonomous Grand Duchy
within the
Russian Empire
, Finland
declared its independence
in .
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
,
Vantaa
and
Turku
.
Throughout its history Finland has remained economically quite free and GDP per capita reached Japan and UK in s. After Nordic economic liberalization from the late s to s, 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 and has invested in NATO-compatibility, though it's not a member. |