Mainland Finland

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Mainland Finland (Manner-Suomi) is a term used for instance in statistics to exclude the autonomous Åland Islands under Finnish sovereignty. Mainland Finland is not to be confused with Finland Proper, which is the province adjacent to Åland. In legal contexts, the relation between the mainland and Åland Islands is depicted with word pair valtakunta–maakunta, which translate into English as the Realm–the Province, but are translated by the Finnish Ministry of Justice as the State–Åland.^[1]

In a geographical sense it could, of course, also be used to exclude the other islands off Finland's coast.

The term is significant in the context of legal differences between Åland and mainland Finland, and also in the context of differences of culture, language, history, and self-perceived nationhood between the Ålanders and the Swedish-speaking Finns in mainland Finland. However, since the size of Åland is well below one percent of that of mainland Finland and since the size of its population is below ten percent of that of the Swedish-speaking Finns in mainland Finland, there are many instances when this distinction is ignored.

[edit] References