Finland
From Simple English Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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. 5.2 million humans live in Finland. Finnish and Swedish are the official languages of Finland. Most people in Finland speak Finnish. Finland became independent in 1917.
The most important cities in Finland are Helsinki, Espoo, Vantaa, Tampere, Turku, Oulu, Lahti, Kuopio, Jyväskylä and Pori.
Finland is a major welfare state. Welfare states have very high taxes, but free health care, education, and welfare for people without work.
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[edit] 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. Sami people have reindeer and colourful clothes.
Very few people in Finland are from other countries, only about 1 percent.
[edit] Nature and weather
There are big forests and many trees in Finland: pine, birch, maple, oak, elm and spruce are common. Many animals live there, like birds, bears, wolves, foxes, lynx and moose. The swan is the national bird of Finland. The swan was a holy, sacred 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.
[edit] 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". People started to farm to make some food 5200 years ago. Farming slowly became more and more popular.
The religion of Finnish people was paganism. Paganism means they believed in many gods. 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. Slowly Christianity became more and more popular. Christianity became the biggest religion of Finland. During the Reformation of Christianity most Finnist 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 revolution in Russia and after that Russia was known as Soviet Union. Leaders of the Soviet Union wanted Finland to 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. 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. Finland is still independent. In fact, Finland fought three different wars during WWII: the Winter War against Soviet Union (1939-40), the Continuation War against Soviet Union (1941-1944) and the Lapland War against Germany (1944-1945).
After the war, there were many factories built in Finland. Many people moved from farms to cities. At that time, big factories did things like make 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. 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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