Portal:Finland

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Location of Finland

Finland, officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It borders Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of Bothnia to the west and the Gulf of Finland to the south, opposite Estonia. Finland covers an area of 338,145 square kilometres (130,559 sq mi) and has a population of 5.6 million. Helsinki is the capital and largest city. The vast majority of the population are ethnic Finns. The official languages are Finnish and Swedish, of which 84.9 percent and 5.1 percent of the population speak the first as their mother tongue. Finland's climate varies from humid continental in the south to boreal in the north. The land cover is predominantly boreal forest biome, with more than 180,000 recorded lakes.

Finland was first settled around 9000 BC after the last Ice Age. During the Stone Age, various cultures emerged, distinguished by different styles of ceramics. The Bronze Age and Iron Ages were marked by contacts with other cultures in Fennoscandia and the Baltic region. From the late 13th century, Finland became part of the Swedish Empire as a result of the Northern Crusades. In 1809, as a result of the Finnish War, Finland was captured from Sweden and became a Grand Duchy of Finland, an autonomous state ruled by the Russian Empire. During this period, Finnish art flourished and the idea of full independence began to take hold. In 1906, Finland became the first European state to grant universal suffrage, and the first in the world to give all adult citizens the right to run for public office. Following the Russian Revolution of 1917, Finland declared its full independence. In 1918 the young nation was divided by the Finnish Civil War. During World War II, Finland fought against the Soviet Union in the Winter War and the Continuation War, and later against Nazi Germany in the Lapland War. As a result, it lost parts of its territory but retained its independence. (Full article...)

Finnish (endonym: suomi [ˈsuo̯mi] or suomen kieli [ˈsuo̯meŋ ˈkie̯li]) is a Uralic language of the Finnic branch, spoken by the majority of the population in Finland and by ethnic Finns outside of Finland. Finnish is one of the two official languages of Finland (the other being Swedish). In Sweden, both Finnish and Meänkieli (which has significant mutual intelligibility with Finnish) are official minority languages. The Kven language, which like Meänkieli is mutually intelligible with Finnish, is spoken in the Norwegian counties Troms and Finnmark by a minority group of Finnish descent.

Finnish is typologically agglutinative and uses almost exclusively suffixal affixation. Nouns, adjectives, pronouns, numerals and verbs are inflected depending on their role in the sentence. Sentences are normally formed with subject–verb–object word order, although the extensive use of inflection allows them to be ordered differently. Word order variations are often reserved for differences in information structure. Finnish orthography uses a Latin-script alphabet derived from the Swedish alphabet, and is phonetic to a great extent. Vowel length and consonant length are distinguished, and there are a range of diphthongs, although vowel harmony limits which diphthongs are possible. (Full article...)
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Prime Minister of Finland Matti Vanhanen

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Colours of Defence Command

The Finnish Defence Intelligence Agency (Finnish: Puolustusvoimien tiedustelulaitos, PVTIEDL; Fenno-Swedish: Försvarsmaktens underrättelsetjänst) is the combined signals (SIGINT), geospatial (GEOINT) and imagery intelligence (IMINT) agency of the Finnish Defence Forces. Operational since 2014, its responsibility is to support the defence of Finland through information gathering and analysis as an intelligence agency, organic to the Intelligence Division of Defence Command.

PVTIEDL's SIGINT history can be traced back to the establishment of Finnish radio intelligence in 1927 by Reino Hallamaa, a Defence Command intelligence officer, while its GEOINT history starts from 1812 with the establishment of the Haapaniemi military surveying school and topographical service. The successes of its predecessors are considered instrumental in key battles of the Winter and Continuation War during 1939–1944, such as intelligence at the largest battle in the history of Nordic countries, the Battle of Tali-Ihantala. (Full article...)

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In the news

2 April 2024 – Viertola school shooting
A student is killed and two others are injured in a shooting at a school in Vantaa, Uusimaa, Finland. A 12-year-old student is detained. (AP) (Yle)
1 March 2024 – 2024 Finnish presidential election
Alexander Stubb is sworn in as the 13th President of Finland. (Reuters)
11 February 2024 – 2024 Finnish presidential election
Alexander Stubb is elected President of Finland with 51.6% of the vote.(Yle)
27 January 2024 – Israel–Hamas war
The United Kingdom, United States, Australia, Italy, Canada, Finland, the Netherlands, Switzerland, and Germany suspend humanitarian aid to UNRWA over allegations that some UNRWA staff members were involved in the Hamas-led attack on Israel. (BBC News) (CBS News)
14 December 2023 – Finland–United States relations
Finland announces the creation of a defense cooperation agreement with the United States. The agreement will grant Finland access to American military resources for use in defensive operations, while the US will gain military access to Finland in the event of conflict. (Reuters)
29 November 2023 – Finland–Poland relations, Finland–Russia relations
National Security Bureau chief Jacek Siewiera announces that Poland will send "a team of military advisors" to the Finland–Russia border in response to an official request for allied support. Finland says it was unaware of the Polish offer. Russia warns against the move, viewing the concentration of troops on the border as a threat. (Reuters)

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Panoramic photo shot of Helsinki, Finland

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