Finnish Geography
Finland is a small country in Northern Europe.
It's closest neighbours are Sweden, Norway, Russia and Estonia.
Here's the CIA's file on Finland (hehe ;-))
I have to correct one thing... "Natural Hazards"... no, we don't have earthquakes, tornados or volcanoes, but we have SNOW!!!
I just discussed with my husband yesterday, it was snowing, and I pointed out to him, that an American would call that a blizzard...
And he looked at me and said "Yeah... it's not. Just a normal snow fall."
It is also a pity that the greatest architect of Finland, Alvar Aalto, was so enchanted by the Spanish and Moroccan architecture,
and wanted to introduce flat roofs in Scandinavia... they can't bear the snow.
And it always snows in the winter. (Sometimes even during the summer...)
It is also very cold. 15-20 degrees Celcius is normal winter temperature (winter lasting from November to March)
(That is temperatures around 0 Fahrenheit...)
Here's an "Active map of Finland"
| The
Historical Provinces of Finland English name (Finnish name, Swedish name)  Finland Proper
(Varsinais-Suomi, Egentliga Finland)  Laponia (Lappi,
Lappland)  Karelia
(Karjala, Karelen)  Ostrobothnia
(Pohjanmaa, Österbotten)  Satakunda
(Satakunta, Satakunda)  Savonia (Savo,
Savolaks)  Tavastia (Häme,
Tavastland)  Nylandia (Uusimaa,
Nyland)  Åland
(Ahvenanmaa, Åland) |
 |
 |
Here are all the regions of
Finland
(The names are in Finnish, and the links will lead you to an informationpage in Finnish) Ahvenanmaa (20) - Aland (Aoland) Etelä-Karjala (14) - Southern Karelia Etelä-Pohjanmaa (7) Southern Ostrobottnia (Southern Bottomland) Etelä-Savo (6) Southern Savonia Itä-Uusimaa (18) - Eastern Nylandia (Newland) Kainuu (3) - Kainuu Kanta-Häme (16) - Tavastia Proper Keski-Pohjanmaa (11) - Mid-Ostrobottnia Keski-Suomi (12) - Central Finland Kymenlaakso (19) - Kymenlaakso (Kymi Valley) Lappi (1) - Lapponia (Lapland) Pirkanmaa (9) - Pirkanmaa (Pirkkaland) Pohjanmaa (8) - Ostrobottnia (Bottomland) Pohjois-Karjala (4) - Northern Karelia Pohjois-Pohjanmaa (2) Northern Ostrobottnia (Northern Bottomland) Pohjois-Savo (5) - Northern Savonia Päijät-Häme (15) Päijänne Tavastia Satakunta (10) - Satakunda ("Hundred counties") Uusimaa (17) - Nylandia (Newland) Varsinais-Suomi (13) - Finland Proper (The Actual Finland) |
To make it even more difficult, the new deal of provinces is quite different from this... :-)
Here is a page on the MODERN provinces of Finland
They are shared by the cities that have grown to be centers of their areas, by the amount of people living in these areas and other governmental matters...
But this is just an artificial and practical deal -
if you ask a person from which province she comes from, you will hear:
"I was born and raised in Savonia, but my family has deep roots in Tavastia, so I see myself as Tavastian"
I could say that "I was born in Eastern Finland, but my family has roots in Western Finland..."
Or that "I was born in Northern Savonia, but my family has roots in Pirkanmaa..."
Yeah, sure...
I was born in Varkaus, if you want to know.
(It actually has a page in Wikipedia! Wow! I'm impressed!
This is the "official" page of Varkaus. They have actually translated it in English too :-))
My heart and soul were born in Tampere, though, and the surrounding area.
(This is how the landscape of my heart looks like :-))