Finland

Finland is a country located far to the north of Europe on the Baltic Sea. The state's neighbours are Norway, Sweden and Russia. The capital Helsinki is located in the southwest of the country and is the largest city in the country. Most of the other larger cities, such as Turku, Tampere or Espoo, are also located in the south.

Finland is almost as large as Germany, but has only about as many inhabitants as the federal state of Hesse. The north in particular is sparsely populated.

The Finns speak Finnish. Swedish is the second official language and most Finns speak it. For some Finns in the south and in the west on the coast, it is the mother tongue. In the far north in Lapland live the Sami people, who speak Sami.

The special thing about the Finnish language is that it is quite different from the other European languages. Only Hungarian and Estonian are somewhat related to Finnish. But even in these languages, the words sound quite different.