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Location: Northern Europe, bordering the Baltic Sea, Gulf
of Bothnia, and Gulf of Finland, between Sweden and Russia
Geographic coordinates: 64 00 N, 26 00 E
Map references: Europe
Area:
total: 337,030 sq km
land: 305,470 sq km
water: 31,560 sq km
Area - comparative: slightly smaller than Montana
Land boundaries:
total: 2,628 km
border countries: Norway 729 km, Sweden 586 km, Russia 1,313
km
Coastline: 1,126 km (excludes islands and coastal indentations)
Maritime claims:
contiguous zone: 6 nm
continental shelf: 200-m depth or to the depth of exploitation
exclusive fishing zone: 12 nm
territorial sea: 12 nm (in the Gulf of Finland - 3 nm)
Climate: cold temperate; potentially subarctic, but comparatively
mild because of moderating influence of the North Atlantic Current,
Baltic Sea, and more than 60,000 lakes
Terrain: mostly low, flat to rolling plains interspersed
with lakes and low hills
Elevation extremes:
lowest point: Baltic Sea 0 m
highest point: Haltiatunturi 1,328 m
Natural resources: timber, copper, zinc, iron ore, silver
Land use:
arable land: 8%
permanent crops: 0%
permanent pastures: 0%
forests and woodland: 76%
other: 16% (1993 est.)
Irrigated land: 640 sq km (1993 est.)
Natural hazards: NA
Environment - current issues: air pollution from manufacturing
and power plants contributing to acid rain; water pollution from
industrial wastes, agricultural chemicals; habitat loss threatens
wildlife populations
Environment - international agreements:
party to: Air Pollution, Air Pollution-Nitrogen Oxides, Air
Pollution-Sulphur 85, Air Pollution-Sulphur 94, Air Pollution-Volatile
Organic Compounds, Antarctic-Environmental Protocol, Antarctic Treaty,
Biodiversity, Climate Change, Desertification, Endangered Species,
Environmental Modification, Hazardous Wastes, Law of the Sea, Marine
Dumping, Marine Life Conservation, Nuclear Test Ban, Ozone Layer
Protection, Ship Pollution, Tropical Timber 83, Tropical Timber
94, Wetlands, Whaling
signed, but not ratified: Air Pollution-Persistent Organic
Pollutants, Climate Change-Kyoto Protocol
Geography - note: long boundary with Russia; Helsinki is
northernmost national capital on European continent; population
concentrated on small southwestern coastal plain
Geography
Finland is situated in Scandinavia in the far north of Europe, bounded
by Sweden, Norway, the Russian Federation and the Gulf of Finland.
There are about 30,000 islands off the Finnish coast. Aproximately
10% of the total land area is under water, and 65% is forest. In
the north of the country, the midnight sun shines night and day
for the whole of June. In the south, daylight lasts for 19 hours
at midsummer.
The Helsinki Metropolitan Area comprises four towns, including
Helsinki (the capital). Half of the 800 sq km (300 sq miles) consists
of parks, forests, shoreline, and lakes.
Climate
Because of the moderating influence of the surrounding water bodies,
the climate of Finland is considerably less severe than might be
expected. The average July temperature along the southern coast
is 15.6° C (60° F); in February the average is about -8.9° C (about
16° F).
Precipitation (including snow and rain) averages about 460 mm
(about 18 in) in the north and 710 mm (28 in) in the south. Light
snow covers the ground for four or five months a year in the south
and about seven months in the north.
Background: Long ruled by foreign powers, including Sweden
and the pre-revolutionary Russian Empire, Finland finally declared
independence in 1917. During World War II, Finland fought the USSR
twice and then the Germans toward the end of the war.
In the following half-century, the Finns made a remarkable transformation
from a farm/forest economy to a diversified modern industrial economy.
Per capita income has risen to the West European level; Finland
is a member of the European Union and is the only Nordic state to
join the euro system at its initiation in January 1999.
Finland
GEOGRAPHY
Size: About 338,145 square kilometers, slightly
larger than Missouri and Illinois combined. About 10 percent of
area made up of inland water. A quarter of the country above Arctic
Circle.
Topography: Four natural regions. Archipelago
Finland begins in southwestern coastal waters and culminates in
Aland Islands. Coastal Finland a band of clay plains, extending
from Soviet to Swedish border. Seldom exceeding width of 100 kilometers,
plains slope upward to central plateau that forms basis of interior
lake district. This core region contains more than 55,000 lakes
set within country's densest forests. Rising above central plateau,
upland Finland extends into Lapland, where forests gradually yield
to harsh climate. Above timber line are barren fells and numerous
bogs. Upland Finland crossed by country's largest and longest rivers.
Climate: Gulf Stream and North Atlantic Drift
Current moderate temperatures somewhat, but winter still lasts up
to seven months in north, and most years gulfs of Finland and Bothnia
freeze, making icebreakers necessary for shipping. Long days in
summer permit farming far to north. Continental weather systems
can bring quite warm summer temperatures and severe cold spells
in winter.
Data as of December 1988
Finland
GEOGRAPHY
Finland is the northernmost country on the European continent.
Although other countries have points extending farther north, virtually
all of Finland is north of 60 degrees north latitude; nearly a quarter
of the land area and fully one-third of the latitudinal extent of
the country lie north of the Arctic Circle .
Data as of December 1988
Finland
Size, External Boundaries, and Geology
In area, Finland has 304,623 square kilometers of land and 33,522
square kilometers of inland water, a total of 338,145 square kilometers.
It shares borders on the west with Sweden for 540 kilometers, on
the north with Norway for 720 kilometers, and on the east with the
Soviet Union for 1,268 kilometers. There are approximately 1,107
kilometers of coastline on the Gulf of Finland (south), the Baltic
Sea (southwest), and the Gulf of Bothnia (west). The rugged coastline
is deeply indented with bays and inlets. The offshore region is
studded with islands.
The most predominant influences on Finland's geography were the
continental glaciers that scoured and gouged the country's surface.
When the glaciers receded about 10,000 years ago, they left behind
them moraines, drumlins, and eskers. Other indications of their
presence are the thousands of lakes they helped to form in the southern
part of the country. The force of the moving ice sheets gouged the
lake beds, and meltwaters helped to fill them. The recession of
the glaciers is so recent (in geologic terms) that modern-day drainage
patterns are immature and poorly established. The direction of glacial
advance and recession set the alignment of the lakes and streams
in a general northeast to southwest lineation. The two Salpausselka
Ridges, which run parallel to each other about twenty-five kilometers
apart, are the terminal moraines. At their greatest height they
reach an elevation of about 200 meters, the highest point in southern
Finland.
Data as of December 1988
Finland
Landform Regions
Many countries of the world can be divided into distinct geographic
regions, in each of which some physical characteristic is dominant,
almost to the exclusion of others. In Finland, the same physical
characteristics are common to each of the four geographic regions
into which the country is divided . Regional differences in Finland
lie, therefore, in subtle combinations of physical qualities. In
archipelago Finland, rock and water are dominant. Coastal Finland
consists of broad clay plains where agriculture plays a leading
role. The interior lake district supports extensive forests. Upland
Finland is covered by Arctic scrub. Nonetheless, each of these regions
contains elements of the others. For instance, patches of agriculture
extend far northward along some rivers in Lapland, and in southern
Finland a substantial bogland, the Suomenselka, is sometimes referred
to as Satakunta Lapland because it has the character of Arctic tundra.
Archipelago Finland, consisting of thousands of islands and skerries,
extends from the southwestern coast out into the Baltic Sea. It
includes the strategically significant Aland Islands, positioned
at the entrance to the Gulf of Bothnia. After World War I, both
Finland and Sweden laid claim to the islands, which are culturally
more Swedish than Finnish. For strategic reasons, however, the League
of Nations awarded the Aland Islands to Finland in 1921 . A principal
reason for this decision was that, during the winter, the islands
are physically linked to Finland by the frozen waters of the sea
and are hence essential for the country's defense. This myriad of
forest-covered and bare bedrock islands was formed and continues
to be formed by the process of uplift following the last glaciation.
The rest of the country is also still emerging from the sea. The
weight of the continental glaciers depressed the land over which
they moved, and even now, a hundred centuries after their recession,
Finland is rising up from this great load through the process of
isostatic rebound. In the south and the southwest, this process
is occurring slowly, at a rate of twenty-five to thirty centimeters
a century. Farther north in the Ostrobothnia area, uplift is more
rapid, it amounts to eighty or ninety centimeters a century. The
process also means that Finland is growing about seven square kilometers
yearly as land emerges from the sea.
Coastal Finland consists of broad clay plains extending from the
coast inland, for no more than 100 kilometers. These plains slope
southward from the morainic Salpausselka Ridges in southern Finland.
Along the Gulf of Bothnia coast, the plains slope southwest from
upland areas. The land of coastal Finland is used for agriculture
and dairy farming.
The interior lake district is the largest geographic region, and
it is perhaps what most foreigners think of when they imagine Finland.
The district is bounded to the south by the Salpausselka Ridges.
Behind the ridges extend networks of thousands of lakes separated
by hilly forested countryside. This landscape continues to the east
and extends into the Soviet Union. As a consequence, there is no
natural border between the two countries. Because no set definition
of what constitutes a lake and no procedures for counting the number
of lakes exist, it has been impossible to ascertain exactly how
many lakes the region has. There are, however, at least 55,000 lakes
that are 200 or more meters wide. The largest is Lake Saimaa, which,
with a surface area of more than 4,400 square kilometers, is the
fifth largest lake in Europe. The deepest lake has a depth of only
100 meters; the depth of the average lake is 7 meters. Because they
are shallow, these many lakes contain only slightly more water than
Finland's annual rainfall. The hilly, forest-covered landscape of
the lake plateau is dominated by drumlins and by long sinuous eskers,
both glacial remnants.
Upland Finland extends beyond the Arctic Circle. The extreme north
of this region is known as Lapland. The highest points in upland
Finland reach an elevation of about 1,000 meters, and they are found
in the Kilpisjarvi area of the Scandinavian Keel Ridge. In the southern
upland region the hills are undulating, while in the north they
are rugged. Much of upland Finland is not mountainous, but consists
of bogs.
Finland's longest and most impressive rivers are in the north.
The Kemijoki has the largest network of tributaries. Farther south
the Oulujoki drains the beginning of the north country. Most of
the streams flow to the Gulf of Bothnia, but there is a broad stretch
of land in the north and northeast that is drained by rivers flowing
north across Norway and northeast across the Soviet Union to the
Arctic Ocean.
Data as of December 1988
Finland
Climate
Latitude is the principal influence on Finland's climate. Because
of Finland's northern location, winter is the longest season. On
the average, winter lasts 105 to 120 days in the archipelago and
180 to 220 days in Lapland. This means that southern portions of
the country are snow-covered about three months of the year and
the northern, about seven months. The long winter causes about half
of the annual 500 to 600 millimeters of precipitation in the north
to fall as snow. Precipitation in the south amounts to about 600
to 700 millimeters annually. Like that of the north, it occurs all
through the year, though not so much of it is snow.
The Atlantic Ocean to the west and the Eurasian continent to the
east interact to modify the climate of the country. The warm waters
of the Gulf Stream and the North Atlantic Drift Current, which warm
Norway and Sweden, also warm Finland. Westerly winds bring the warm
air currents into the Baltic areas and to the country's shores,
moderating winter temperatures, especially in the south. These winds,
because of clouds associated with weather systems accompanying the
westerlies, also decrease the amount of sunshine received during
the summer. By contrast, the continental high pressure system situated
over the Eurasian continent counteracts the maritime influences,
causing severe winters and occasionally high temperatures in the
summer.
Data as of December 1988
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