Provinces of Finland
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Republic of Finland |
 This article is part of the series: |
|
|
|
Legislative
Foreign Policy
|
|
Other countries · Atlas Politics Portal |
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. The provinces will be abolished altogether in 2010.[1]
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.[citation needed]
| 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.
[edit] See also
[edit] Notes
[edit] External links
- State Provincial Offices – Official site
|
||||||||
