Finland

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Finland, officially the Republic of Finland (Finnish: Suomi; Swedish: Finland (help·info)), 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.

Around 5.3 million people reside in Finland and the majority is concentrated in the south.. It's the eighth largest country in Europe in terms of area and the most sparsely populated country in the European Union. Most Finns are native in Finnish, one of the few official languages of the European Union that is not of Indo-European origin. The largest minority language Swedish is spoken natively by 5.5 percent. Finland is a democratic, parliamentary republic with a central government and local governments in 415 municipalities. Greater Helsinki (including Helsinki, Espoo, and Vantaa) totals a million residents and a third of GDP. Other cities include Tampere, Turku, and Oulu.

Finland was historically part of Sweden and from 1809 an autonomous Grand Duchy within the Russian Empire. Finland's declaration of independence in 1917 from Russia was followed by a civil war, wars against the Soviet Union, and a political struggle during the Cold War. Finland has been economically quite free throughout its history. GDP per capita reached Japan and the UK in the 1970s. After Nordic economic liberalization from the late 1980s to 1990s, it has transformed itself into a high-technology high-globalization economy with excellent results in many international comparisons of national performance. According to the World Audit Democracy profile, Finland is the freest nation in the world in terms of civil liberties, freedom of the press, low corruption levels and high levels of political rights. Finland joined the European Union in 1995 but has stayed outside defence cooperation.

History

Prehistory

According to archaeological evidence, the area now composing Finland was first settled around 8500 BCE during the Stone Age as the ice shield of the last ice age receded. The earliest people were hunter-gatherers, living primarily off what the tundra and sea could offer. Pottery is known from around 5300 BCE (see Comb Ceramic Culture).The arrival of the Battle Axe culture (or Cord-Ceramic Culture) in southern coastal Finland around 3200 BCE may have coincided with the start of agriculture. However, the earliest certain records of agriculture are from the late third millennium BCE. Even with the introduction of agriculture, hunting and fishing continued to be important parts of the subsistence economy, especially in the northern and eastern parts of the country.

Read more at Wikipedia.org