Geography of Finland

Where is the country of Finland located on world map? According to COUNTRYAAH.COM, Finland is an independent nation located in Northern Europe. Finland celebrates its independence day on December 6, commemorating the declaration of independence from Russia in 1917. The formal name of Finland is The Republic of Finland and its national symbols include a flag with a blue field featuring a white cross, an escutcheon featuring a shield with three golden lions above it, and the national seal which features an image of a lion holding a sword. The national anthem is called “Maamme” which translates to “Our Land”. The national flower is the lily-of-the-valley while the national animal is the brown bear. Finland also has an official motto: “Unity in Diversity”. See historyaah for Finland history.

Nature

Plant and animal life as well as nature conservation

Finland, the land of a thousand lakes, belongs to the bait. The miles of forests are dominated by pine, spruce and birch with hints of aspen, gray eel, rowan and seal. In the southern, coastal parts you will also find more southern features such as oak, lime, maple, mountain oak, vresalm, ash and hazel. Besides the many lakes, the country is rich in wetlands (marshes and bogs in north palsa bogs), which, however, many utdikats.

Flora is very similar to northern Sweden. Individual plants that are rare or absent here is widely prevalent in Finland, for example chamaedaphne, Rosa acicularis, Finnish water lily, find eyebright (Euphrasia rostkoviana Fennica) and extended cliff. Other typical Finnish species are fragrances, dilute jelly (Najas tenuissima), Finnish musk grass, arctic salt grass, russet elm (Elymus fibrosus), whitewash (Carex bohemica), pyrolavide (Salix pyrolifolia), Russian grime (Silene tatarica), Russian rice) and Russian small drill (Agrimonia pilosa).

Wildlife is reminiscent of Norrlands with moose, red fox, forest sharks, squirrels, badgers, ermine, small weasel and forest farm. Of the so-called four large predators, lo are the most common (about 2,500 animals) and have the highest prevalence, while wolf, brown bear and wolverine are most common in the border area of Russia (especially in Karelia) and dependent on immigration from the east to compensate for the losses to followed by annual hunting.

The reindeer (Rangifer tarandus fennicus) is a unique form of wild reindeer that remains in Finland. In contrast to the tams, the forest reindeer with their longer legs and higher mane are better adapted to forest life. The species was widespread in the northeastern Europe (even in Poland) until the 16th century, but disappeared quickly thereafter due to intensive hunting. The forest reindeer were exterminated from Finland in the early 1900s but re-immigrated from the Russian Karelia in the 1940s. Today, around 2,500 animals in Finland are distributed in 2–3 areas and around 3,000 forest reindeer across the border in Russia.

Gray seals and bays are found along virtually the entire coast, the latter also in Finland’s largest lake Saimen as a remnant from the time when the lake was in contact with the Baltic Sea. Similar populations of inland or related species are found in the Russian lakes Ladoga (2,000–3,000 animals) and Lake Baikal (80,000–100,000 animals) as well as the Caspian Sea (around half a million seals). In Saimen, there are only 200–300 bays, of which about 10 percent – most young animals – die in fishing nets each year, which has so far made it impossible to grow the stock.

In Finland there are some species that are missing in Sweden: Flying Squirrel (see flying squirrels), greater spotted eagle, Terek Sandpiper, bush warbler, Greenish Warbler, yellow-breasted bunting and blåstjärt. Some species that have small distribution areas in Sweden but are more widespread in Finland are patch beak, smaller dwarf beak, taigan babe, bush mouse, northern singer and dwarf sparrow.

The hydropower expansion of the rivers has hit plant and animal life hard, among other things, the stocks of otters and salmon have been decimated. Of 18 rivers that open in the Baltic Sea and the Bothnian Sea, and which originally harbored playing salmon, only two – Torne River and Simo River – now have viable strains.

The Finnish coast is characterized by many archipelagos. Along the northern part of the Gulf of Finland, one archipelago replaces the other (Eastern Gulf of Finland, Pernå, Porvoo, Ekenäs, Ingå, Korpo, Nagu and Föglö). In the eastern part there are important breeding areas for the Baltic Sea herring, which creates nice conditions for many seabirds such as herring, cliff tern, silver tern, thunder mule and sibling pig. Other bird-rich archipelagos include Åland’s Eckerö and Hammarland’s archipelago, the Archipelago Sea National Park, Luvia, Pori, Oura and Norra Kvarken outside Vaasa.

Finland is the only country in Europe that has special wilderness legislation, the Wilderness Act. It covers 12 areas with a contiguous area of ​​almost 15,000 km², which corresponds to an area equal to that of Hälsingland. Most of the wilderness areas are located in the northern part of the country and the preservation of the Sami culture and the Sami communities are an important part of the Wilderness Act. Long before people from southeastern Europe and Russia arrived, there was a Sami indigenous population with more than 10,000 years old roots. There is not a stream, river or mountain without a Sami name. Lapland wilderness is a cultural land in Sami vintage.

Together with other forms of protection, especially national parks, the more indigenous nature of Finland is given strong protection against threats such as mining, new roads and industrial forestry. An example is Saariselkä and Koilliskaira, with the Kemihaaran wilderness area and Urho Kekkonen national park (one of the country’s largest), with large-scale meadows, moors, lakes and low mountains. Especially the bird fauna is rich with species such as saddle crow, crane, tether, mountain whistle, dwarf beetle, ant spaw, ant snake, blue marsh hawk, mountain hawk and patch owl- all typical bait and tundra birds. Other important wilderness areas are Lemmenjoki National Park and Ivalojoki River System in the northernmost parts of Finnish Lapland.

Käsivarsi mountain area in northwestern Finland on the border with Sweden and Norway houses one of the few remaining nesting sites for mountain goose in Scandinavia. During so-called lame years, mountain owl nest on the mountain hedges, and every spring and summer you will find hunting falcon, mountain piper, cutting snap, marshland, blue hawk and red-tailed beetle.

The border with Russia is particularly rich in nature. In the center of Karelia east of the city of Kuhmo lies Elimyssalo conservation area. Here are typical tajgafåglar as Gray Owl, hawk owl, three-toed woodpecker, Siberian jay, waxwing, gray-headed chickadee, North singer, UPDATES and Rustic Bunting. Further north in the district of Kuusamo, Oulanka National Park has been set aside to protect a mosaic of pristine rivers, marshes and bait forests. The National Park borders the larger, Russian Paanajärvi National Park, and together they protect a piece of unique nature with orchids such as norna and guckusko as well as animals such as brown bear, lice and wolves.

The areas around Kuusamo and Kuhmo house Finland’s largest stock of brown bear, wolverine and lox. Enthusiastic entrepreneurs have taken advantage of the situation and offer tourists unique opportunities to experience and photograph these predators as well as owls, tarks, snakes and cranes. For the nature-interested public, there is hardly a better opportunity to get in touch with these animal species anywhere else in Europe than right here in Eastern Finland.

National Parks (2012)

National park	Based	Area (km2)	County
The Bothnian National Park	2011	915	Western Finland
Bottenviken National Park	1991	2.5	Lapland County
Ekenäs Archipelago National Park	1989	52	Southern Finland
Helvetinjärvi National Park	1982	50	Western Finland
Hiidenportti National Park	1982	45	Oulu County
Isojärvi National Park	1982	22	Western Finland
Kauhaneva – Pohjankangas National Park	1982	57	Western Finland
Koli National Park	1991	30	Eastern Finland
Kolovesi National Park	1990	23	Eastern Finland
Kurjenrahka National Park	1998	29	Western Finland
Lauhanvuori National Park	1982	53	Western Finland
Leivonmäki National Park	2003	30	Western Finland
Lemmenjoki National Park	1956	2 850	Lapland County
Liesjärvi National Park	1956	21	Southern Finland
Linnansaari National Park	1956	38	Eastern Finland
Noux National Park	1994	45	Southern Finland
Oulanka National Park	1956	270	Oulu County and Lapland County
Pallas – Yllästunturi National Park	2005	1 020	Lapland County
Patvinsuo National Park	1982	105	Eastern Finland
Petkeljärvi National Park	1956	6	Eastern Finland
Puurijärvi Isosuo	1993	13	Western Finland
Pyhä – Häkki National Park	1956	13	Western Finland
Pyhä – Luosto National Park	2005	142	Lapland County
Päijänne National Park	1993	14	Southern Finland
Repovesi National Park	2003	15	Southern Finland and Eastern Finland
Riisitunturi National Park	1982	77	Lapland County
Rokua National Park	1956	8.8	Oulu County
Salamajärvi National Park	1982	62	Western Finland
Seitseminens National Park	1982	46	Western Finland
Sibbo large forest national park	2011	18.6	Southern Finland
Archipelago Sea National Park	1983	500	Western Finland
Syöte National Park	2000	299	Oulu County and Lapland County
Tiilikkajärvi National Park	1982	34	Eastern Finland
Torronsuo National Park	1990	30	Southern Finland
Urho Kekkonen National Park	1983	2 550	Lapland County
Valkmusa National Park	1996	17	Southern Finland
Eastern Finnish Gulf National Park	1982	6.7	Southern Finland

Terrain shapes and bedrock

From a topographic point of view, Finland can be divided into three major regions: the coastal landscape, the inland lake plateau and the highland area.

• AbbreviationFinder: Offer a full list of commonly used abbreviations, acronyms, and initialisms related to the state of Finland.

The coastal landscape extends from the broken coastline up to 130 km inland with wide coastal plains that are less than 20 m above sea level. The coastal plains are mostly covered by thick layers of clay, especially north of the Gulf of Finland. In Ostrobothnia, the terrain’s uniformity also depends on the presence of this relatively well-preserved sub – Cambrian pen plane. The land’s weak slope towards the sea gives rise to extensive archipelagos. They have a particularly wide distribution along the Kvarken and in the Turku-Åland archipelago.

The inner lake plateau is a slightly more hilly area in southern and central Finland with altitude differences of 100–200 m. It has arisen because cracks in the higher parts of the uber shield have been weathered above all during the Mesozoic era and cleared out before and during the ice age (see ice ages). Its southern boundary is formed by Salpausselkä, a long double stretch of end moraine with large amounts of gravel and sand deposits. North of this stagnation line in the ice melt, the ice sheet moved rapidly north. The purged crack zones were not filled in by the deposited moraine without elongated sinks emerged, and so-called sea routes were formed. Among the more than 35,000 lakes here are the largest, among others. Saimaa, Päijänne and Näsijärvi, at altitudes between 75 and 200 m above sea level.

The Highland region extends into the interior of northern Finland, between 200 and 500 m above sea level. The upland begins east of Ule swamp with streaks of rocky hills. The terrain type is called rocky hill plain. At the far north, the mountain range with altitudes of 200–400 m above the surroundings. At its highest is a projection into Finland by the Norwegian Halde mountain (Haltiatunturi), which reaches 1,324 m above sea level.

Finland is dewatered in several different directions – to Ladoga through the Vuoksen, to the Gulf of Finland through the Kymmene River, to the Bothnian Sea through the Kumo River, to the Bothnian Bay through the Kemi River and the Ule River, and to the Northern Ice Sea through the Pasvik River and the Tana River.

Most of Finland’s land surface is a low lying part of the Baltic shield, which is strongly eroded and leveled. One third of the area is less than 100 m above sea level. and another third lower than 200 meters above sea level. These areas comprise the coastal landscape and the inner lake plateau. The Highland region consists of upright parties in the indigenous mountain. The lower and smoother areas have been formed by sedimentary sedimentary rocks from Cambrian, which have disappeared recently, protecting the underlying bedrock surface. The Finnish natural landscape is characterized by elongated, flaky lakes and a heavily broken coast. The topographic features of the landscape depend on the numerous fracture systems of the bedrock and the deeper erosion that has occurred in them.

The bedrock is predominantly from the archaic and from the oldest and middle proterozoic.

The Archaic bedrock, which covers the eastern and northern parts of the country, has ages in the range of 3.0–2.5 billion years (see map Baltic Shield). Main components are granitoids, partly migmatitic gneisses. A characteristic feature is elongated greenstone belts. contains magnesium-rich volcanic rocks.

Towards the west overlaid the Archaean basement rocks with weathering contact of tidigproterozoiska formations from the time interval from 2.5 to 2.0 billion years. Among these are the Sumerian – Sariolian sedimentary and volcanic formations in southeastern Finland and the Lapponian, basaltic greenstones dominated by the surface rocks of northern Finland. Above these, the jatulian formations, comprising quartzites, basalts, dolomites and shales, have been deposited. Of early Proterozoic age is probably also the bedrock of the granulite belt, which runs in an arc across the northernmost tip of Finland. The granulites are highly metamorphic sedimentary and intrusive rocks, surpassed over the bedrock in the southwest almost 2 billion years ago.

On the Jatulian and older bedrock rests the 2.0–1.9 billion-year-old so-called Kalevian slate formations, which in turn to the west are overlain by the often migmatitized svekophenic surface rocks. These are dominated by shales and gray shales with elements of basic and acidic volcanites (volcanic rocks). The surface rocks are included in the roots of a 1.9–1.8 billion-year-old mountain range (the sveko karelian or svekofennis; see the sveko karelian orogenesis), which has its continuation in the eastern parts of Sweden. In addition to surface rocks, there are significant volumes of essentially granitoid deep rocks(tonalite, granodiorite, granite) in the svekofennic bedrock in central and southwestern Finland. The youngest generation of these deep rocks includes the 1 670–1 540 million year old rapakivi granites, which are a kind of character rocks for Finland.

Younger than the rapaki vigranites are red sandstones, conglomerates, etc. in Satakunda, the area around Muhos and in the Gulf of Bothnia. The sandstones, which belong to the Jotnian formations, are penetrated by olivine bases aged 1,250 million years (see Jotnian sandstone).

Alkali rocks and carbonatitic rocks of different ages are found in smaller areas, e.g. at Iivaara in northern Ostrobothnia and Sokli in southeastern Lapland and at Siilinjärvi in the central part of the country. Also noted are meteorite craters, of which the best known is Lappajärvi from the younger Cretaceous.

Small occurrences of paleozoic bedrock are found in the bay of Lumparn in Åland and between Vaasa and Pori. A smaller area in the far north-west belongs to the Caledonids and their border formations.

Climate

Finland belongs to the cold-temperate, humid climate zone (see climate: Earth’s climate) and the country’s northern and eastern parts have a clear local continental feel. The average temperature for February is between −7 °C in Åland and −19 °C in the northwest, and it can drop to −30 °C in northern Finland. The average temperature in July is 17–18 °C in central Finland and 14–15 °C in Lapland. In Lapland, the temperature can reach up to 27 °C during the short summer with two months of midnight sun. In the southern part of the country, temperature extremes are less marked than in the north and east. The vegetation period in the south is 175 days against 120 in Lapland.

The snow cover duration in the southwest is only 80–140 days but 220–250 days in the north, where it reaches a depth of 80 cm, compared to 20 cm on average in Åland. The total rainfall is on average 750 mm per year in the south, where Salpausselkä gives some orographic effect, but only 400–450 mm in the northwest, where the Scandinavian mountain range has some rain shadow effect. Most rain falls during the month of August while spring is dry, especially along the coast.