58 Fun Facts About Finland

Finland shares land borders with Sweden, Norway and which other country?

Russia's border with Finland runs about 1,340 km, mostly through forest; in 2023 Finland began building a fence along some 200 km of it.

Which two languages are Finland's official national languages?

Finnish and Swedish are both national languages under the constitution, although Swedish is the mother tongue of only about 5% of Finns.

Lake Saimaa, Finland's largest lake, is the only home of which endangered animal?

A freshwater ringed seal, the Saimaa seal has been cut off from the sea since the last ice age; limits on net fishing lifted its numbers from about 150 in the 1980s to roughly 500 by 2024.

Which Finnish company, rooted in an 1865 mill, was the world's largest mobile phone vendor from 1998?

The company took its name from a second mill by the town of Nokia in 1871, and spent decades making rubber boots, tyres and cables before phones.

What did Norwegians propose giving Finland for its centenary?

A mountain peak: Finland's highest point, 1,324 m up Halti, is only the shoulder of a fell whose summit lies in Norway, but Norway's prime minister ruled the gift out on constitutional grounds.

What do Finns celebrate on 6 December?

Independence Day marks 6 December 1917, when parliament adopted the declaration drawn up by Svinhufvud's senate, ending 108 years as a grand duchy under the tsars.

Which arm of the Baltic Sea separates Finland's west coast from Sweden?

Gulf of Bothnia water is so diluted by rivers that pike and perch thrive at its northern end, and being nearly fresh it freezes over for months each winter.

Finnish Lapland promotes itself as the official hometown of which famous figure, with a village in Rovaniemi?

Santa Claus Village grew up on the Arctic Circle around a cabin built in 1950 for a visit by Eleanor Roosevelt, and Santa has kept an office there since 1985.

In December 2020, UNESCO added Finland's sauna tradition to which of its lists?

Intangible Cultural Heritage status recognised a custom so central that some older Finns were born in the family sauna, a sterile room with hot water to hand.

Which bat-and-ball game, pitched straight up, is called Finland's national sport?

Pesäpallo was devised by Lauri Pihkala after he saw baseball in the United States; the vertical pitch makes the ball easy to hit, so games turn on placement and running.

By what nickname is Teemu Selänne, the top-scoring player from Finland in NHL history, known?

The Finnish Flash was the nickname Selänne earned for his speed after scoring 76 goals as a Winnipeg Jets rookie in 1992–93, an NHL record for a first-year player.

Which organisation did Finland join on 4 April 2023?

NATO admitted Finland as its 31st member less than a year after parliament voted 188 to 8 to apply, ending decades of military non-alignment.

What was Finland's currency before it adopted the euro?

The markka was introduced in 1860 while Finland was a grand duchy under the tsar, and in 1865 it was tied to silver, separating it from the rouble and bolstering Finnish autonomy.

Which monster-masked rock band won the 2006 Eurovision Song Contest for Finland?

Frontman Mr Lordi makes the band's costumes himself and redesigns them for every album; the winning song was Hard Rock Hallelujah.

Which Finnish writer and illustrator created the Moomins?

Tove Jansson said the first Moomin was the ugliest creature she could draw, sketched on an outhouse wall during an argument with her brother; the first book followed in 1945.

Which Finnish studio created Angry Birds, the 2009 game that saved the company from bankruptcy?

Rovio Entertainment had made 51 games without a hit of its own and was close to bankruptcy before Angry Birds, drawn by designer Jaakko Iisalo, arrived in December 2009; Sega bought the studio in 2023.

Which Finnish-born software engineer began a free operating-system kernel as a student in 1991 and later created Git?

Linus Torvalds began Linux in 1991 as a 21-year-old student after buying an Intel 386 PC, wrote Git in 2005 to manage kernel development, and shared the 2012 Millennium Technology Prize.

Which Sibelius tone poem began as the finale of an 1899 pageant staged in protest at press censorship?

Finlandia grew from the pageant finale 'Finland Awakes', revised in 1900; inside the tsar's empire it then had to be billed under the covert title 'Impromptu' to get past the censors.

What is Finland's national epic, compiled by Elias Lönnrot and published in 1835?

The Kalevala was pieced together by Lönnrot, a country doctor, from folk songs he collected on long journeys through eastern Finland and Karelia; his expanded 1849 edition is the one read today.

Which Finnish company, founded in 1649, is best known for its orange-handled scissors?

Fiskars began as an ironworks chartered in 1649 and made its first orange-handled scissors in 1967, after prototypes in black, red, green and orange were put to a staff vote.

Which future first lady wore dresses by the Finnish label Marimekko during the 1960 presidential campaign?

Jacqueline Kennedy's loose cotton shifts, one worn on a 1960 Sports Illustrated cover, brought the then little-known Finnish label worldwide attention.

Which marshal commanded Finland's forces in the Winter War and later served as the country's president?

Gustaf Mannerheim had spent 30 years as an officer in the tsar's army before leading Finland's defence; he became president in 1944 to take the country out of the war.

By what nickname is Finnish Winter War sniper Simo Häyhä best known?

Häyhä was dubbed The White Death after reportedly killing around 500 enemy soldiers in under 100 days of the Winter War; he preferred iron sights so his head stayed lower and no lens could glint.

What did Finns sarcastically call Soviet cluster bombs, mocking the foreign minister's claim they were dropping food?

Molotov bread baskets mocked the Soviet foreign minister's claim that his bombers were dropping food; the Finns then named their petrol bombs Molotov cocktails, 'a drink to go with the food'.

In 1906 Finland became the first country in Europe to do what?

Grant universal suffrage is what the 1906 reform did, making Finnish women the first in Europe with the vote; in 1907 voters elected 19 of them, the world's first female members of parliament.

Which Finnish city hosted the 1952 Summer Olympics?

Helsinki staged the 1952 Summer Olympics after its 1940 Games were cancelled by war; Paavo Nurmi lit the stadium cauldron at the opening ceremony.

Which autonomous, demilitarised island region of Finland elects its own parliament, the Lagting?

Åland stayed Finnish in 1921 when the League of Nations settled a dispute over the islands, on condition that they keep wide self-rule and remain demilitarised.

What did nine-time Olympic champion Paavo Nurmi carry as he raced?

A stopwatch let Nurmi run to an even pace instead of racing his rivals; at the 1924 Paris Games he won the 1,500 m and 5,000 m golds within two hours.

Kimi Räikkönen won the 2007 Formula One World Drivers' Championship driving for which team?

Räikkönen took the 2007 title in his first season with Ferrari, beating McLaren's Alonso and Hamilton by a single point with victory in the Brazilian finale.

Which bird, Finland's national bird since 1981, appears on the Finnish one-euro coin?

Whooper swan numbers fell so low that fewer than twenty pairs bred in Finland by the 1950s; the bird recovered as an emblem of the young conservation movement and now flies on the one-euro coin.

About 90% of the buildings in Rovaniemi were destroyed in 1944 by which retreating force?

The German army burned Rovaniemi as it withdrew in the Lapland War of 1944, fought because Finland's armistice obliged it to drive out its former ally.

What do the winners of the Wife Carrying World Championship in Sonkajärvi traditionally receive?

Her weight in beer is the traditional prize; the race recalls the legend of the 19th-century robber Ronkainen, who is said to have tested recruits by making them carry heavy sacks.

Finland has one of the world's highest per-capita consumption rates of which drink?

Coffee breaks are written into Finnish collective labour agreements, and at about 12 kg a head each year the country drinks more than almost any other, mostly light-roasted.

The Karelian pasty usually has a thin crust of which grain, wrapped around a rice filling?

Karelian pasties use a thin rye crust folded around a rice porridge filling; the recipe has carried EU traditional speciality guaranteed status since 2003, so deviations must be sold as 'rice pasties'.

What is the Finnish name for the salty black liquorice flavoured with ammonium chloride?

Salmiakki gets its bite from ammonium chloride, long used in cough medicine; the sweet is thought to have begun in pharmacies and was sold as pastilles across the Nordic countries by the 1930s.

The Finnish word 'sisu' is usually translated as what?

Stoic determination and grit is the usual gloss for sisu; the Winter War carried the word to English-language readers in January 1940, when Time and The New York Times each tried to explain it.

Which fantasy author retold a tale from Finland's national epic?

J. R. R. Tolkien studied Finnish as a student and let it shape Quenya, the Elvish tongue of his legends; the tale he retold, before he wrote of Middle-earth, was the tragedy of Kullervo.

Which of these languages is a distant relative of Finnish in the Uralic family?

Hungarian is kin to Finnish while the languages of Finland's big neighbours are not; the two have developed apart for several thousand years since their common Uralic ancestor.

Which Finnish driver won back-to-back Formula One world titles with McLaren in 1998 and 1999?

Mika Häkkinen took both titles after surviving a near-fatal crash in Adelaide in 1995; Michael Schumacher called him the rival he respected most.

Which Finnish architect designed both the Paimio Sanatorium and the wavy glass Savoy vase?

Alvar Aalto planned the Paimio tuberculosis sanatorium around its patients, down to washbasins angled so that running water fell quietly and did not disturb a room-mate.

Which state was the first to recognise Finnish independence, within a month of the declaration?

Soviet Russia came first: Lenin's Council of People's Commissars recognised Finland on New Year's Eve, weeks after the declaration; Sweden, Germany and France followed on 4 January, and civil war erupted in Finland weeks later.

Which sea fortress off Finland's capital did Sweden start in 1748 and name Sveaborg?

Suomenlinna, the so-called Gibraltar of the North, surrendered to a Russian siege in 1808 for reasons that remain unclear; it took its Finnish name, 'Castle of Finland', in 1918.

The Cold War term 'Finlandisation' began as the German word 'Finnlandisierung' in the political debate of which country?

West Germany's political debate produced 'Finnlandisierung' in the late 1960s, a warning that the country might end up deferring to the Soviet Union if American troops went home.

Who was elected in 2000 as Finland's first female president?

Tarja Halonen served two six-year terms to 2012; US talk-show host Conan O'Brien, joking that they looked alike, ran mock campaign ads for her 2006 re-election and then flew to Finland to meet her.

Which former Finnish president was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2008?

Martti Ahtisaari, president from 1994 to 2000, received the 2008 Nobel Peace Prize for some 30 years of mediation from Namibia's independence to Kosovo and the 2005 Aceh peace deal.

Finland's 'jokaisenoikeus', or everyone's right, lets people do what on someone else's land without asking?

Pick wild berries, and mushrooms too: anyone may also walk, ski and camp briefly on others' land, but lighting a fire or cutting wood still needs the owner's permission.

On Finland's flag the blue is said to stand for lakes and sky; what does the white represent?

Snow is the white in poet Zacharias Topelius's line about 'the blue of our lakes and the white snow of our winters', published in 1863, half a century before the flag became law.

Which Finnish runner won both the 5,000 m and 10,000 m at the 1972 Munich Olympics?

Lasse Virén fell mid-race in the Munich 10,000 m final, got up and won in a world-record 27:38.4; he added the 5,000 m days later and repeated the double in Montreal in 1976.

Which annual global ranking placed Finland first every year from 2018 to 2026?

The World Happiness Report put Finland top for nine straight years from 2018; trust in institutions, and even in strangers, is a reason Finns often give.

Which Indigenous people of Finnish Lapland elect their own parliament at Inari?

The Sámi speak three languages in Finland; Inari Sámi was down to a handful of young speakers in the 1980s before 'language nest' nurseries, an idea borrowed from the Māori, began raising new ones.

'Juhannus' is the Finnish name for which holiday?

Juhannus is Midsummer, celebrated on the Saturday between 20 and 26 June; cities empty as Finns head to lakeside cottages for bonfires and saunas under a sun that barely sets.

The Winter War ended in March 1940 with a peace treaty signed in which capital city?

Moscow was where Finland signed away the Karelian Isthmus and the city of Viipuri; more than 400,000 Karelians, about an eighth of Finland's people, were resettled in the rest of the country.

As of 2026, Finnish shipyards had built about 60% of the world's ships of which specialised type?

Icebreakers are a Finnish speciality born of necessity: the country's ports ice over in winter, so keeping the shipping lanes open became a national craft.

In 1812, Alexander I moved the Finnish capital away from which city, closer to St Petersburg?

He wanted the capital further from Swedish influence and closer to St Petersburg; the country's only university followed after Turku's great fire of 1827.

Which Swedish king founded the future Finnish capital in 1550?

Gustav Vasa ordered the town founded in 1550 as a trading rival to Tallinn across the water, forcing burghers from Porvoo, Rauma and other towns to move there.

What is the name of Finland's 200-seat, single-chamber parliament?

Eduskunta replaced a Diet of four estates, swapping separate chambers for nobles, clergy, burghers and peasants for 200 members sitting in one house.

Who took office as President of Finland on 1 March 2024?

Alexander Stubb had left parliament in 2017 for the European Investment Bank and then a professorship in Florence, before returning to beat Pekka Haavisto in the February 2024 runoff.

As of 2024, which source generated the largest share of Finland's electricity?

Nuclear power supplied close to two-fifths of Finland's electricity in 2024, after the long-delayed Olkiluoto 3 reactor finally reached regular output; wind overtook hydropower for second place.