Provinces of Finland

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Finland
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The state of Finland consists of 6 provinces (Finnish: läänit, Swedish: län). The provincial authority is part of the central government's executive branch, not directly elected. The system was created in 1634, and its makeup was changed drastically in 1997, when the number of the provinces was reduced from 12 to 6. This effectively made them purely administrative units, as linguistic and cultural boundaries do not follow the borders of the provinces.

Since the late 19th century the state of Finland has been bilingual. Its governmental offices and agencies use both domestic languages in contacts with the public. Each province is led by a governor (maaherra, landshövding) who is appointed by the president on the recommendation of the cabinet. The governor is the head of the State Provincial Office (lääninhallitus, länsstyrelse), which acts as the joint regional authority for seven ministries in the following domains:

social services and health care
education and culture
police administration
rescue services
traffic administration
competition and consumer affairs
judicial administration

The official administrative subentities under the Provincial Office authorities are the Registry Offices (Finnish maistraatti, Swedish magistrat), and State Local Districts (Finnish kihlakunta, Swedish härad), which are districts for police, prosecution, and bailiff services. These do not necessarily correspond to municipal level (municipality, sub-region, region) divisions of the country.

The Governor's post is widely seen as a post for "disposal" of retiring politicians.

No.	Provinces	Finnish and Swedish names	Residence city	Largest city	Population (2003)	Area (km²)	Merged Provinces (1997)
1.	Southern Finland	Etelä-Suomen lääni Södra Finlands län	Hämeenlinna Tavastehus	Helsinki	2,116,914	34,378	Uusimaa, Kymi, Häme
2.	Western Finland	Länsi-Suomen lääni Västra Finlands län	Turku Åbo	Tampere	1,848,269	74,185	Vaasa, Turku-Pori, Central Finland, Häme(Pirkanmaa)
3.	Eastern Finland	Itä-Suomen lääni, Östra Finlands län	Mikkeli S:t Michel	Kuopio	582,781	48,726	Kuopio, North Karelia, Mikkeli
4.	Oulu	Oulun lääni Uleåborgs län	Oulu Uleåborg	Oulu	458,504	57,000	No changes
5.	Lapland	Lapin lääni Lapplands län	Rovaniemi Rovaniemi	Rovaniemi	186,917	98,946	No changes
6.	Åland¹	Ahvenanmaan lääni Ålands län²	Mariehamn² Maarianhamina	Mariehamn	26,000	6,784	No changes

1/ Some duties, which in Mainland Finland are handled by the provinces, are on the Åland Islands transferred to the autonomous Government of Åland.
2/ The Åland Islands are unilingually Swedish.