Finland
From the Simple English Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia that anyone can change
Finland (Suomi in Finnish) is a country in Northern Europe and is a member state of the European Union. Finland is one of the Nordic countries.
The capital of Finland is Helsinki. The currency of Finland is the Euro (EUR). It was "markka", FIM, before 2002. The president of Finland is Tarja Halonen. 5.3 million humans live in Finland. Finnish and Swedish are the official languages of Finland. Most people in Finland speak Finnish, but there is about six percent of Finland's population whitch speaks Swedish as their mother tongue, living mostly in the west of Finland and on Åland. Finland became independent in 1917.
The most important cities in Finland are Helsinki, Espoo, Tampere, Vantaa, Turku, Oulu, Lahti, Kuopio, Jyväskylä and Pori.
In the latter part of 20th century the state of Finland followed the ideas of social democrats. Finland was called a welfare state, mainly by social democrats themselves. However today it is controversial is Finland a welfare state any longer. Also some people say the whole idea of social democratic welfare state has failed in Finland and in other Nordic countries. Welfare state is very expensive. Taxes are very high, and many people think it is bad for economy. Politics in Finland has changed in the last few years.
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[change] People and culture
The people of Finland are called Finns. Finns like saunas and nature. Many Finnish families have a summer cottage, a small house where they go to relax on their summer holiday. The most important parties that Finnish people celebrate are Midsummer and Christmas. Santa Claus is an old Finnish tradition, although later the Coca-Cola company introduced him to the world. In North America some children think he lives near the north pole. In Finland and neighbouring countries, he lives in a small mountain called Korvatunturi ("Ear mountain").
There is a very small group (minority) of Sami (also called Lapp) people in the most northern part of Finland called Lapland. Many sami people have reindeer and colourful clothes.
Very few people in Finland are from other countries, only about one percent.
[change] Nature and weather
Most of Finland is covered by forest. The swan is the national bird of Finland. The swan was a holy animal long ago.
There are also hundreds of rivers and thousands of lakes with fresh water. Fishing is a popular sport.
Many islands in the Baltic Sea belong to Finland, too. Thousands of islands are part of the Åland archipelago. Tourists from all over the world come to see the fells and the Northern lights of Lapland.
[change] History of Finland
People first came to Finland 10 000 years ago. That was just after an ice age, just after very thick ice that was on ground had melted away.
Some think the first people in Finland already spoke a language that is related to Finnish that is spoken today. We know for sure that early form of Finnish language was spoken in Finland in the Iron age. (The Iron Age was in Finland 2500-800 years ago).
First people killed wild animals and ate them, but did not farm their food. Those kind of people are called "hunter-gatherers". Some people started to farm to make some food 5200 years ago. Farming slowly became more and more popular and became the major way of life until the modern age.
The religion of Finnish people was paganism. The biggest god of Finns was Ukko. He was a god of sky and thunder. About a thousand years ago some Finns changed their religion to Christianity, and slowly Christianity became more and more popular. Some pagan beliefs still remained amongst the Christian beliefs. During the Reformation of Christianity most Finnish people became protestants.
From the Middle ages Finland was a part of Sweden. Then in year 1809 AD Russia took Finland from Sweden. Then Finland was a part of Russia, but Finland was autonomic, which means Finns could make decisions about many things in Finland. Finns could make their own laws and Finland had their own money (called markka), their own stamps and own customs. However Finland did not have its own army.
Then in 1917, Finland became independent, it was no longer a part of Russia. There was a communist revolution in Russia and after 1922 Russia was a part of the Soviet Union. There were communists in Finland too, and they tried to make revolution in Finland. This attempt of revolution caused Finnish civil war. Communists lost the civil war, and Finland remained its old capitalist system.
Stalin who was leader of the Soviet Union did not like that there was a capitalist country as the neighbour. Stalin wanted Finland to turn to communist state and be a part of the Soviet Union. Leaders of Finland refused; they wanted to stay independent. Soviet Union sent many troops to Finland to try to make Finland join it. This was the Winter war. There were many fights, and Finnish soldiers won many times. Finally, the leaders of both countries agreed to make peace. Finland was not joined with the Soviet Union, but had to give away some land to make the peace. Parts of Karelia were with those areas lost to Soviet Union.
Adolf Hitler was a chief in Germany, and he wanted to invade Soviet Union. Finland wanted its lost areas back, so Finland joined the German invasion, that started at 1941. This part of Second world war is called Continuation war in Finland. However, Finland was not fascist or antisemitist country. Finns were interested in freedom and not dictatorship. Finnish Jews fought with other Finnish people against Soviet Union. Karelia was returned to Finland.
While Germany was losing the war Finland wanted to stop fighting. Finland made peace with Soviet Union, but in that peace Finland lost parts of Karelia again. Also peace with Soviet Union made Finland and Germany enemies. Finns fought Germans, and Germans retreated to Norway. This is called War of Lapland. Finland remained independent.
After the war, there were many factories built in Finland. Many people moved from farms to cities. At that time, big factories made things like paper, ships and steel. Now more and more people work on more advanced things, like high technology. Also, more people go to a university to get a good education. Finland was one of the first countries where most people had Internet connections and mobile phones. A known company that makes mobile phones, Nokia, is from Finland.
Finland joined European Union in 1995. Finnish money markka was changed to European Unions money Euro in 2002.
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