Finland

From Srafopedia

Finland, officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country situated in Northern Europe. It has borders with Sweden to the west, Russia to the east, and Norway to the north, while Estonia lies to its south across the Gulf of Finland. The capital city is Helsinki.

Finland has a population of 5.3 million people, spread over an area of 338,145 square kilometres (130,559 square miles). Finland is the sixth largest country in Europe in terms of area, with a low population density of 16 people per square kilometre, making it the most sparsely populated country in the European Union. The majority of the population is concentrated in the southern part of the country. As their mother tongue, most Finns speak Finnish, one of the few official languages of the European Union that is not of Indo-European origin.

Finland has thriving services and manufacturing sectors and is a highly democratic welfare state with low levels of corruption, consistently ranking at or near the top in international comparisons of national performance. Finland is eleventh on the United Nations' Human Development Index and ranked as the sixth happiest nation in the world.

The state organisation is divided into six administrative provinces, the most northerly being Lapland where the Sami people, or Lapps, have a semi-autonomous Sami Domicile Area for issues on language and culture.

(Source: Wikipedia)