44 COMMON QUESTIONS with answers about Finland
NordenBladet – What are the traditions of Finland?, Where does Santa live Finland?, Where in Finland can you see the Northern Lights?, Is Finland a Scandinavian country?, What is the average temperature in Finland?, How many saunas are in Finland? etc – get answers to all your questions!
What food is Finland famous for?
Fried vendace (Coregonus albula) is a summer-time delicacy in Finland. The fish are fried, served, and eaten whole, usually accompanied with garlic sauce. Fried Baltic herring is a popular and wholesome Finnish dish. It is usually accompanied with boiled or mashed potatoes.
Do they eat reindeer in Finland?
Reindeer are found in Finland’s northern province of Lapland and their meat is one of the healthiest foods you can put on your plate according to recent studies. It is high in B-12, omega-3, omega-6 and lean. And it is delicious! Served with mashed potatoes, this dish is eaten throughout the country, in all seasons.
What are the traditions of Finland?
The Finnish Christmas, Joulu, follows traditions of Christmas trees and the Advent calendars. Holidays start on December 23. Gift giving occurs on Christmas Eve with a visit from Joulupukki (Father Christmas, Santa Claus). Traditional meals are typically only eaten on Christmas followed by sauna.
What is Santa Claus called in Finland?
The name “Joulupukki” literally means “Christmas goat” or “Yule Goat” in Finnish; the word pukki comes from the Teutonic root bock, which is a cognate of the English “buck”, and means “billy-goat”. An old Scandinavian custom, the figure eventually became more or less conflated with Santa Claus.
How is Christmas celebrated in Finland?
Finnish people believe that Santa Claus or Father Christmas lives in the north part of Finland called Korvatunturi (or Lapland), north of the Arctic Circle. People from all over the world send letters to Santa Claus in Finland. In Finnish Happy/Merry Christmas is ‘Hyvää joulua’.
Where does Santa live Finland?
Santa Claus lives in “Santa Claus Village & the arctic Circle”. You can meet Santa Claus and cross the magical Arctic Circle every day at the Santa Claus Village in Rovaniemi in Finland. Rovaniemi is the Official Hometown of Santa Claus in Lapland.
Santa Claus in his post office (NordenBladet)
Where in Finland can you see the Northern Lights?
In northern Lapland the lights shine about every other clear night between September and March. In southern Finland they are visible on about 10-20 nights a year. Look to the stars. If you notice that the night sky is clear and starry, your chances of seeing the northern lights are good.
Can you see Northern Lights from Helsinki?
Because of this, the Northern Lights (or Aurora Borealis) happens mostly in the north of Finland, in the region of Lapland. However, during periods when there’s high solar activity, like the current one, the Northern Lights can be seen further south.
What month is the best to see Northern Lights?
April to August. To see the Northern Lights you need dark skies and from early-April until late-August, the Aurora may be blazing across the Arctic firmament but it is visible only to scientific equipment, as the skies are just too light for the human eye to see the show.
What is a puukko knife?
A puukko is a small traditional Finnish general purpose belt knife with a single curved cutting edge and, usually, a flat back.
Puukko knife (Kellam)
How many municipalities are in Finland?
As of 2017, there are 311 municipalities in Finland, of which 106 are cities or towns (kaupunki). As of 2017, 16 municipalities are unilingually Swedish (all in the autonomous Ă…land region).
How many provinces are in Finland?
In 1995 the old system “Finland 12 provinces (lääni, län, 400+ municipalities” was replaced with a new one: “Finland 6 provinces (lääni, län), 20 regions/counties (maakunta, landskap), 400+ municipalities”. (May 2014)
How many regions are in Finland?
Finland comprises 19 regions called maakunta in Finnish and landskap in Swedish. The regions are governed by regional councils, which serve as forums of cooperation for the municipalities of a region.
Is Finland a Scandinavian country?
Geographically Finland is not a part of Scandinavia, Sweden, Norway and Denmark are. However, Finland, together with Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Iceland and Estonia form the Nordic countires, known in Finnish as Pohjoismaat.
Why is Finland not a part of Scandinavia?
Finland isn’t a part of Scandinavia but of Fenno-Scandinavia. It is also one of the Nordic countries. Scandinavia refers to the Scandinavian Mountains, or Scandes, which stretch over Norway and Sweden. Due to the shared cultural and language context Denmark is also considered as a part of Scandinavia, but not Finland.
What is the Finnish language based on?
The Uralic languages with the most native speakers are Hungarian, Finnish, and Estonian, which are the official languages of Hungary, Finland, and Estonia, respectively, and of the European Union.
How old is the Finnish language?
Despite its physical origins it’s not, however, related to Russian, which belongs to the Eastern European Slavic language family. The most ancient ancestor of Finnish and other Uralic languages was Proto-Uralic, spoken approximately 2000 to 7000 years ago.
How many letters are in the Finnish alphabet?
The Finnish alphabet has 29 letters: a, b, c, d, e, f, g, h, i, j, k, l, m, n, o, p, q, r, s, t, u, v, w, x, y, z, å, ä ja ö. The letters š and ž can occur only in loan words.
Is Finnish hard to learn?
According to a freshly-released list Finnish is among the group of languages the FSI considers to be the most difficult for English speakers to learn. Over the years language learning hobbyists have compiled numerous lists rating the world’s easiest — and most difficult – languages to learn.
Can Estonians understand Finnish?
The two other national languages that are Uralic languages as Finnish are Estonian and Hungarian. Estonian and Finnish are very close to each other, and Estonians and Finns usually may understand each other. Even though Finnish and Hungarian are related languages, they do not look or sound similar.
What is the biggest city in Finland?
Helsinki. Helsinki is Finland’s biggest city as well as the nation’s capital.
Which are the 5 biggest cities in Finland?
1) Helsinki
2) Tampere
3) Turku
4) Oulu
5) Jyväskylä
How long is daylight in Finland?
In the middle of winter, in contrast, daytime is very short. In the south of the country daylight in December lasts only for 6 hours. In northern Lapland a period of darkness prevails at that time, with the sun not rising above the horizon at all.
Why is Finland called the Land of the Midnight Sun?
The midnight sun is a natural phenomenon that occurs in the summer months in places north of the Arctic Circle or south of the Antarctic Circle, when the sun remains visible at the local midnight.
What is the climate of Finland? What is the average temperature in Finland?
July temperatures in Finland average 13 to 17°C. February is usually Finland’s coldest month, with temperatures averaging from – 22 to -3°C. In northern Finland, winter temperatures often drop as low as -30°C or even down to -50°C, sometimes with strong, cold easterly or northeasterly winds.
How hot does it get in Finland?
If daytime temperatures during the summer in Lapland resemble those of the rest of Finland, around 20 °C (68 °F), with peaks around 30 °C (86 °F), nights remain cool or even cold, with minimum temperatures typically below 10 °C (50 °F).
Where is Swedish spoken in Finland?
Helsinki, the capital, had a Swedish-speaking majority until late in the 19th century. Currently 6.1% of the population of Helsinki are Swedish-speaking and 9.6% speaks languages other than Finnish and Swedish. The Swedish dialects spoken in Finland mainland are known as Finland-Swedish.
What state is Helsinki in?
Helsinki (Swedish: Helsingfors) is the capital city and most populous municipality of Finland. Located on the shore of the Gulf of Finland, it is the seat of the region of Uusimaa in southern Finland, and has a population of 642,045.
3x Helsinki, Finland (NordenBladet/Helena-Reet Ennet)
What are people from Finland called?
Finns or Finnish people (Finnish: suomalaiset) are a Finnic ethnic group native to Finland. Finns are traditionally divided into smaller regional groups that span several countries adjacent to Finland, both those who are native to these countries as well as those who have resettled.
What is the population of Finland 2018?
The most recent confirmed population figures date to the 2010 census, which found an official population of 5.36 million. The population of Finland has since grown to an estimated 5.54 million in 2018.
What is the ethnic makeup of Finland?
Finland is a relatively ethnically homogeneous country. The dominant ethnicity is the Finnish people but there are also notable historic minorities of Swedes, Sami and Roma people. As a result of recent immigration there are now also considerable groups of ethnic Russians, Estonians and Somalis in the country.
What animals live in Finland?
Native woodland animals include bear, elk, wolf, wolverine, lynx, and Finnish elk. Wild reindeer have almost disappeared; those remaining in the north are domesticated.
Is it safe in Finland?
There are no major safety issues in Helsinki, as long as you are aware pickpocketing does happen, and there are a couple of shady spots in Helsinki which single Finland travelers may want to avoid at night. The countryside is practically crime free.
Is Finland a developed country?
Finland is the most stable country in the world. Finland is the freest country in the world together with Sweden and Norway. Finland is the safest country in the world. Next to Norwegians and Icelanders, Finns feel the second least insecure in the world.
What do you call a person from Finland?
In English we have the words “Finn” and “Finnish”, which are not synonyms. The main difference between them is that the word Finn is a noun, while Finnish is an adjective. When you talk about the people of Finland, you can say that they are Finns or that they are Finnish people.
What is the culture of Finland?
The culture of Finland combines indigenous heritage, as represented for example by the country’s national languages Uralic Finnish and Germanic Swedish, the sauna, with common Nordic, and European culture.
What percent of Finland is white?
Altogether, immigrants constitute barely 2 percent of Finland’s population of 5.2 million. There were 108,346 foreign-born residents at the end of 2004, according to government statistics. Of those, fewer than 25,000 were born in non-white countries whose residents would look conspicuous on the streets of Helsinki.
What is a Finnish sauna?
The Finnish sauna is a substantial part of Finnish culture. There are five million inhabitants and over three million saunas in Finland – an average of one per household. For Finnish people the sauna is a place to relax with friends and family, and a place for physical and mental relaxation as well.
How many saunas are in Finland?
You can still find people in Finland who were born in the sauna. Not when it was heated, of course, but it was a sterile place where hot water was available. It is estimated that there are two million saunas in Finland, for a population of 5.3 million.
What do u wear in a sauna?
The sauna is experienced best in your birthday suit, wearing nothing but a smile and a towel around your waist to protect the bench and your privacy. Don’t even wear jewelry and glasses. Let your exposed skin sweat freely. Just be clean and dry when you enter.
How many lakes are there in Finland?
187,888 lakes. There are, however, at least 55,000 lakes that are at least 200 metres wide. If lake is defined to be a body of standing water larger than 500 square metres, then there are 187,888 lakes in Finland.
What is the largest lake in Finland?
Lake Saimaa, lake in southeastern Finland. It lies just northwest of the Russian border and is northeast of Helsinki. It has an area of 443 sq mi (1,147 sq km) and is the primary lake in the Great Saimaa lake system, which, at 1,690 sq mi (4,377 sq km), is the largest system in Finland.
How many islands are in Finland?
Sometimes Finland is referred to as the land of the thousand lakes, but that is a serious understatement. Finland has some 180000 (yes one hundred and eighty thousand!) lakes and almost as many islands! Just the Archipelago sea alone has some 40000 islands!
What is the main religion in Finland?
Evangelical Lutheran Church Of Finland. The majority of individuals in Finland identify as members of a Christian church; the vast majority of these Christians are attendants of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland. Its followers make up 70.9% of the population.
Featured image: Northern Lights Village Saariselkä (inarisaariselka.fi)
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