Today we will help you out to know about some awesome and interesting facts about Finland, you will be amazed after reading these facts about Finland.
Interesting facts about Finland
Country & Nature
- Finland is the country with the lowest population density in the European Union, with only 16 inhabitants per km².
- There are exactly 187,888 lakes (over 500 m²) and 179,584 islands on the territory of Finland. Both are world records.
- The Päijänne Aqueduct, 120 kilometers long, is the longest tunnel in Europe and the second longest in the world.
History & Population
- Finland was one of the last regions of Europe to be Christianized in the twelfth century.
- Finland has been an independent country since 1918. Before that, it belonged either to Russia or Sweden.
- Finnish athletes have won more Olympic Summer Medals per capita than any other country. As of 2012, Finland had won a total of 302 Olympic Summer Medals (including 101 gold medals) for a population of only 5.4 million. This gives an average of 55.9 medals (18.7 gold medals) per million inhabitants. Finland ranks second only to Norway in the number of Olympic Winter Medals per capita (28.8 medals per million populations).
- The Finnish drivers have won more World Rally Championships (14 titles) than any other country, and the most Formula 1 championships compared to the population of their country (4 titles for 5 million inhabitants – the 2nd best country being Austria with 4 titles for a population of 8 million).
Society & Culture
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- Finland has been at the top of the press freedom rankings in the world every year since the publication of the first index by Reporters without Borders in 2002.
- According to UNICEF’s 2007 report on child well-being in rich countries , Finland has the highest level of academic achievement in all the countries studied for reading, mathematics and science. However, she also has the lowest percentage of children who say “very much like school” (only 8%).
- Since 2004, Finland has been consistently ranked as the 2nd or 3rd best country for mothers by Save the Children .
- Finnish (or suomi) is a non-Indo-European language belonging to the Uralian family, as is Estonian and Hungarian.
- The Finns are the largest coffee drinkers in the world, swallowing as much as 12 kg of the black substance every year, twice as much as the Italians and the French, three times more than the Americans and four times more than the British.
- Santa Claus (called “Joulupukki” or “Christmas Goat” in Finland) officially resides in a house built just above the Arctic Circle, near the town of Rovaniemi, in the Northern Province of Lapland. The Santa Claus Post Office (address: Santa Claus Village, Polar Circle FIN-96930) receives some 700,000 letters each year from children in 198 countries (so far).
Political economics
- The current president of Finland, Tarja Halonen, is a woman, like 12 of the 20 ministers of the government.
- According to a World Audit study, Finland was the most democratic and least corrupt country in the world in 2012.
- Finland ranked 1st and 2nd in the Global Competitiveness Report and the World Economic Forum Growth Competitiveness Ranking in 2006, respectively.
- Finland was ranked first in the Environmental Sustainability Index for Yale and Columbia Universities. It is also ranked first for technological achievements by the United Nations Development Program.
- Nokia Corporation (a Finnish company) was the world’s largest manufacturer of mobile phones from 1998 to 2012, with a global market share of more than 35% between 2006 and 2009.
- Finland came second in the 2013 International Electronic Governance Rankings at Waseda University.
