Total area


Total area:	338, 000 square kilometres, of which 10% is water and 69% forest; 187,888 lakes, 5,100 rapids and 179,584 islands; Europe's largest archipelago, including the semi-autonomous province of �land
Distances:	1,160 km north to south, 540 km west to east Finland's land border with Russia (1,269 km) is the eastern border of the European Union.
Climate	The climate of Finland is marked by cold winters and fairly warm summers. In the far north of the country the sun does not set for about 73 days, producing the white nights of summer. In winter the sun remains below the horizon for 51 days in the far north. In summer the temperature quite often rises to +20 Celsius or more and occasionally goes close to +30 in southern and eastern parts of the country. In winter, temperatures of -20 Celsius are not uncommon in many areas. Finnish Lapland invariably has the lowest winter temperatures. The mean temperature in Helsinki in July is +17 Celsius and in February -5.7 Celsius.


Population:	5.2 million, 17 inhabitants per square kilometre 67% live in towns or urban areas, 33% in rural areas Principal cities: Helsinki (555,500), Espoo (213,300), Tampere (195,500), Vantaa (178,500), Turku (172,500) and Oulu (120,800) About one million people live in the Helsinki metropolitan area. Finland has a Sami (Lapp) population of 6,500.
Languages:	Finland has two official languages: Finnish and Swedish. Finnish, a Finno-Ugric language, is spoken by 93% and Swedish by 6 % of the population. Sami (Lappish) is the mother tongue of about 1,700 people.
Religion:	85% Lutheran and about 1% Orthodox

Some important events in the history of Finland:

1155

The first crusade to Finland by the Swedes. Finland becomes part of the Swedish realm.

1809

Finland is handed over to Russia by Sweden and becomes a partly autonomous Grand Duchy under the Russian emperor.

1917

Finland's declaration of independence on December 6.

1919

The present constitution is adopted and Finland becomes a republic

1955

Finland joins the United Nations

1995

Finland becomes a member of the European Union

The head of state is the President of the Republic. The President is elected for a six-year term by direct popular vote. The incumbent, President Mrs. Tarja Halonen, was elected in 2000.

Parliament:

Parliament consists of one chamber with 200 members. The members are elected for a four-year term by direct popular vote under a system of proportional representation.

After the parliamentary elections of March 1999, the seats were divided among nine parties as follows:

Party	seats	% of votes
The Social Democratic Party The Centre Party The National Coalition Party The Left Wing Alliance The Green League The Swedish People's Party The Finnish Christian Union The Reform Group The True Finns Others (province of �land representative)	51 47 46 20 11 12 10 1 1 1	22.9 22.4 21.0 10.9 7.5 5.1 4.2 1.1 1.0 3.8

The Government:

The new coalition government formed in April, 1999, is headed by Prime Minister Paavo Lipponen, the leader of the Social Democratic Party. The coalition consists of the Social Democratic Party, the National Coalition (conservative), the Left Wing Alliance, the Greens and the Swedish People's Party.

In 2000, Finland's GNP per capita was around 25 500 euros (ca. 22 600 USD).

Value of exports in 2000

by region:			by product:
EU Efta rest of Europe Asia North America others	55.8% 4.3% 13.5% 10.2% 8.1% 8.1%		electro-technological products pulp and paper machinery and equipment metals and metal products vehicles timber and wood chemicals	31% 21.7% 10,2% 8,7% 5,8% 5,4% 5,4%

Value of imports in 2000

by region:			by use:
EU Efta rest of Europe Asia North America other countries	54.5 % 5.4 % 15.3 % 13.1 % 7.5 % 4.2 %		raw materials and other production necessities investment goods consumer durables other consumer goods energy products	40,8 % 24 % 10.7 % 12.2 % 12.3 %

Currency:
The Finnish currency unit is the euro. Finland was one of the 12 EU countries that started using euro cash in 2002.