Languages of Åland

The Åland province of Finland, highlighted in red

Åland, an autonomous region of Finland, has the largest Swedish-speaking majority in Finland, with about 89% of the province, or about 25,000 people, speaking Swedish as their first language (specifically the Åland Swedish dialect). Swedish is also the sole official language of the province.^[1] Finnish, of course, also has a presence, although it is small; only 5% of Ålanders are Finnish-speaking.

The ten most spoken languages in 2013 (with a total population of 28,666):^[2]

• Swedish: 25,424 (88.69%)
• Finnish: 1,392 (4.86%)
• Latvian: 269 (0.94%)
• Romanian: 258 (0.90%)
• Estonian: 171 (0.60%)
• Thai: 132 (0.46%)
• Russian: 123 (0.43%)
• English: 108 (0.38%)
• German: 91 (0.32%)
• Kurdish: 72 (0.25%)

While the number of Swedish-speakers grew from 24,169 in 2000 to 25,424 in 2013, their percentage has dropped from 93.7% in 2000 to 88.7% in 2013. For Finnish, the percentage and number of speakers increased slightly (from 1,238 to 1,392; from 4.8% to 4.9%). The percentage of speakers of other languages grew from 1.5% in 2000 to 6.5% in 2013.^[2]

External links

• Languages of Åland

References