Finland

What makes Finland Different than other places?

Finland is the most sparsely populated country in the European Union, with only 16 inhabitants per km. There are around 187,888 lakes and 179,584 islands located in Finland. Finland has only been an independent country since 1918. Before that, it belonged to Russia or Sweden.

Finland is the 65th largest nation in the world with a total area of 338,145 square kilometers. The population of Finland is 5,262,930. It shares land borders with three countries: Norway, Sweden, and Russia. Finland is located on the border of two language families: Indo-European (Swedish, Danish, Norwegian) and Uralic (Finnish, Sami). 

Their flag is has a blue Nordic cross, which represents Christianity, on a white background.  The choice of these two colors is because they believe that blue represents the country's thousands of lakes and the sky, while the white represents the snow that covers the land in winter. 

Some of the world’s best Northern Lights can be spotted in Finland! Called the “Aurora Borealis” and can appear more than 200 nights a year, which is every winter night. There is a resort in Finland where you sleep in a glass igloo to watch the northern lights. 

Finland is not only known for its thousands of lakes! Over 70 % of Finland is taken over by beautiful forests, even more than any other European country and an area larger than UK or Italy!

The Finns consume a huge amount of coffee and are considered the world's biggest coffee drinkers. They tend to drink coffee twice more than the Italians, three times more than the Americans, and four times more than the Brits. 

Finns invented a day specifically for food! They called it the restaurant day, it is a day when anyone can set up a restaurant of their choice, and anywhere they want in Finland!

Finland is considered the safest place people have ever known. It is one of the few countries in the world where lost wallets and mobile phones are returned to their rightful owner, meaning that Finns grew up with this ethical behavior. People feel safe walking alone in city parks or use public transport regardless of the hour. 

The rarest seal in the world is found in Finland’s Largest Lake called Lake Saimaa. It is called the Saimaa ringed seal and is one of the few living freshwater seals in the world. This endangered seal has a total population of only about 310 individuals.

Surprisingly, there are no public payphones in Finland! There are over 5 million mobile phones in Finland for a population of 5.4 million.