FinlandFinnish Visions

What did I know about Finland itself before beginning on this voyage of discovery? Aside from Finland having stamps with Suomi on them, being a Scandinavian country where they have got a lot of lakes and snow in winter, and with folks that like having saunas and then rushing into the snow to brace themselves, not a huge amount.
I know only a touch more about the Finnish language from a long-ago study of language families and Finnish is a Uralian Language with similarities to Estonian, Hungarian, and some languages spoken in Russia by little ethnic sectors, and so I infer the origins of the Finns are doubtless quite different to other Scandinavians. A little research reveals some really engaging information regarding Finland.
The Finns may very well say they come from a little country and if measured by the 5 million or so population, in EU terms, this is so. But Finland is the 7th biggest EU country by area, with around a third of the country lying north of the Arctic Circle and its getting bigger, but not quickly ( see later on ). In the north west Finland borders with Norway, a long eastern border with Russia and a border with Sweden and the Gulf of Bothnia to the west. Just across the Gulf of Finland in the south is Estonia. I thought Finland would be mountainous not so the majority of Finland is lowland, but there are mountains over 1000m in the north. There are four main geographic areas ( though two sources do say three ). These are : Archipelago Finland, Coastal Finland, the interior Lake District and Upland Finland to the north.
Archipelago Finland consists of the thousands of islands extending from the south west coast into the Baltic Sea, and including the popular tourist and strategically important Aland Islands and the Archipelago of Turku. These islands, culturally more related to Sweden were awarded to Finland after WWI in 1921 by the League of countries as necessary for Finland's security as the islands are joined to Finland when the sea ice freezes in winter. It is excellent for a holiday so book Finland Hotels and get yourself there.
What's really most fascinating is that Finland is still rising from the sea and so the Archipelago may continue to develop. A hundred centuries ago the big weight of the continental glaciers pushed Finland down, and now after they have receded Finland is rising up thru isostatic rebound, happening at about 25-30cm a century and 80-90cm in the north. At the same time Finland expands at rate of seven sq km as the land rises.
Coastal Finland is composed of broad clay plains extending from the coast for 100km or less, and the land is employed for farming and dairy farming.
The inside Lake District is the largest geographical area, and is maybe what most people outside Finland regard as typically Finnish ( excepting all the numties like me who had no real idea of Finnish Landscapes ). The boundaries of the area to the south are the Salpausselka Ridges, and behind these are networks of thousands of lakes which extend into Russia. No one appears to agree how many lakes there are, except there are probably 55K of them 200m or over and comparatively shallow with a mean depth of 7m. Upland Finland extends into the Arctic Circle and the extraordinary north is known as Lapland, though there are mountains in this area, a lot of the area is boggy.
Finland is within the northerly coniferous forest area with forests covering around sixty five percent of the terrain. Around 45% of forests are pines, 37% spruces with oaks, lindens, elms and ash trees in the southwest.
These forests are home to giant wild animals, bear, elk, deer, lynx, wolverine and wolf.
Seasonal differences in temperature are considerable with cold snowy winters and warm, even hot weather in the summers. In the capital Helsinki in the south the coldest month of March can be -5 C while this could fall to -10 in the north.