inscription finlandi (G 319), dating from the 11th century.[10] History Main article: History of Finland Astuvansalmi rock paintings at Saimaa, the oldest dating from 3000-2500 BC. Prehistory According to archaeological evidence, the area now comprising Finland was settled at the latest around 8500 BCE during the Stone Age as the ice shield of the last ice age receded. The artifacts the first settlers left behind present characteristics that are shared with those found in Estonia, Russia and Norway.[11] The earliest people were hunter-gatherers, using stone tools. There is also evidence of carved stone animal heads.[12] The first pottery appeared in 3000 BCE when settlers from the East brought in the Comb Ceramic culture.[13] The arrival of the Corded Ware culture in southern coastal Finland between 3000–2500 BCE coincided with the start of agriculture.[14] Even with the introduction of agriculture, hunting and fishing continued to be important parts of the subsistence economy. The Bronze Age (1500–500 BCE) and Iron Age (500 BCE–1200 CE) were characterised by extensive contacts with other cultures in the Fennoscandian and Baltic regions. There is no consensus on when Finno-Ugric languages and Indo-European languages were first spoken in the area of contemporary Finland. In the beginning of 9th century[15] the inhabited area of Finnish tribes was bordered by: White Sea, in the north Northmen, in the west behind Scandinavian Mountains Swedes & Goths, in the southern tip of Scandinavian Peninsula Baltic Sea Estland, to the south of Gulf of Finland Slavonic tribes, in the Novgorod surroundings and further in the south Kingdom of Chazars, Morduines, White Bulgarians and Bashkirs who lived in the Volga watershed area. Swedish era The Swedish Empire following the Treaty of Roskilde of 1658.      Sweden proper      Kexholm County      Swedish Ingria      Swedish Estonia      Livonia      German dominions      Scania, Gotland, Bohuslän      Trondheim      Härjedalen Swedish-speaking settlers arrived in the coastal regions during the medieval time. Swedish kings established their rule in 1249.[16] The area of present-day Finland became a fully consolidated part of the Swedish kingdom. Swedish became the dominant language of the nobility, administration and education; Finnish was chiefly a language for the peasantry, clergy and local courts in predominantly Finnish-speaking areas. During the Protestant Reformation, the Finns gradually converted to Lutheranism. In the 16th century, Mikael Agricola published the first written works in Finnish. The first university in Finland, The Royal Academy of Turku, was established in 1640. Finland suffered a severe famine in 1696–1697, and almost one third of the population died.[17] In the 18th century, wars between Sweden and Russia led to the occupation of Finland twice by Russian forces, wars known to the Finns as the Greater Wrath (1714–1721) and the Lesser Wrath (1742–1743).[18] By this time Finland was the predominant term for the whole area from the Gulf of Bothnia to the Russian border. Russian Empire era Main article: Grand Duchy of Finland See also: Finland's language strife and Russification of Finland On March 29, 1809, after being taken over by the armies of Alexander I of Russia in the Finnish War, Finland became an autonomous Grand Duchy in the Russian Empire until the end of 1917. During the Russian era, the Finnish language started to gain recognition. From the 1860s onwards, a strong Finnish nationalist movement known as the Fennoman movement grew. Milestones included the publication of what would become Finland's national epic – the Kalevala – in 1835, and the Finnish language's achieving equal legal status with Swedish in 1892. The Finnish famine of 1866–1868 killed 15% of the population, making it one of the worst famines in European history. The famine led the Russian Empire to ease financial regulations, and investment rose in following decades. Economic and political development was rapid.[19] The GDP per capita was still a half of United States and a third of Great Britain.[19] In 1906, universal suffrage was adopted in the Grand Duchy of Finland. However, the relationship between the Grand Duchy and the Russian Empire soured when the Russian government made moves to restrict Finnish autonomy. For example, the universal suffrage was, in practice, virtually meaningless, since the tsar did not have to approve any of the laws adopted by the Finnish parliament. Desire for independence gained ground, first among radical liberals[20] and socialists. Civil war and early independence Main articles: Finland's Declaration of Independence and Finnish Civil War Background Soviet approval of Finland's independence in Russian. After the February Revolution the position of Finland as part of the Russian Empire was questioned, mainly by Social Democrats. Since the head of state was the Czar of Russia, it was not clear who was the chief executive of Finland after the revolution. The parliament, controlled by social democrats, passed the so-called Power Law, which would give the highest authority to the parliament. This was rejected by the Russian Provisional Government and by the right wing parties in Finland. The Provisional Government dissolved the parliament by force, which the social democrats considered illegal, since the right to do so was stripped from the Russians by the Power Law. New elections were conducted, in which right wing parties won a slim majority. Some social democrats refused to accept the result and still claimed that the dissolution of the parliament (and thus the ensuing elections) were extralegal. The two nearly equally powerful political blocs, the right wing parties and the social democratic party, were highly antagonized. The October Revolution in Russia changed the game anew. Suddenly, the right-wing parties in Finland started to reconsider their decision to block the transfer of highest executive power from the Russian government to Finland, as radical socialists took power in Russia. Rather than acknowledge the authority of the Power Law of a few months earlier, the right-wing government declared independence. War On January 27, 1918, the official starting shots to the war were fired in two simultaneous events. The government started to disarm the Russian forces in Pohjanmaa, and the Social Democratic Party staged a coup. The latter succeeded in controlling southern Finland and Helsinki, but the legal government continued in exile from Vaasa. As the awaited war of independence materialized, the stage was set for a brief but bitter civil war. The Whites, who were supported by Imperial Germany, prevailed over the Reds, supported by Bolshevist Russia.[21] After the war tens of thousands of Reds and suspected sympathizers were interned in camps, where thousands died by execution or from malnutrition and disease. Deep social and political enmity was sown between the Reds and Whites and would last until the Winter War and beyond. The civil war and activist expeditions to the Soviet Union strained Eastern relations. New republic After a brief flirtation with monarchy, Finland became a presidential republic, with Kaarlo Juho Ståhlberg elected as its first president in 1919. The Finnish–Russian border was determined by the Treaty of Tartu in 1920, largely following the historic border but granting Pechenga (Finnish: Petsamo) and its Barents Sea harbour to Finland. Finnish democracy did not see any more Soviet coup attempts and survived the anti-Communist Lapua Movement. The relationship between Finland and the Soviet Union was tense. Germany's relations with Finland were also not good. Military was trained in France instead, and relations to Western Europe and Sweden were strengthened. In 1917 the population was 3 million. Credit-based land reform was enacted after the civil war, increasing the proportion of capital-owning population.[19] About 70% of workers were occupied in agriculture and 10% in industry.[22] The largest export markets were the United Kingdom and Germany. The Great Depression in the early 1930s was relatively light in Finland. World War II Main article: Military history of Finland during World War II Areas ceded by Finland to the Soviet Union after the Winter War in 1940 and the Continuation War in 1944. The Porkkala land lease was returned to Finland in 1956. During World War II, Finland fought the Soviet Union twice: in the Winter War of 1939–40 after the Soviet Union had attacked Finland; and in the Continuation War of 1941–44, following Operation Barbarossa, in which Germany invaded the Soviet Union. After fighting a major Soviet offensive to a stand still, Finland made peace with the Soviet Union through the Moscow Armistice. This was followed by the Lapland War of 1944–45, when Finland forced the Germans out of northern Finland. The treaties signed in 1947 and 1948 with the Soviet Union included Finnish obligations, restraints, and reparations – as well as further Finnish territorial concessions begun in the Moscow Peace Treaty of 1940). Finland was forced to cede most of Finnish Karelia, Salla, and Petsamo, which amounted to ten percent of its land area and twenty percent of its industrial capacity, including the ports of Vyborg (Viipuri) and ice-free Liinakhamari (Liinahamari). Some 400,000 evacuees, mainly women and children, fled these areas. Finland had to reject Marshall aid. However, the United States provided secret development aid and helped the still non-communist Social Democratic Party in hopes of preserving Finland's independence.[23] Establishing trade with the Western powers, such as the United Kingdom, and the reparations to the Soviet Union caused Finland to transform itself from a primarily agrarian economy to an industrialised one. For example, the Valmet corporation was founded to create materials for war reparations. Even after the reparations had been paid off, Finland – poor in certain resources necessary for an industrialized nation (such as iron and oil) – continued to trade with the Soviet Union in the framework of bilateral trade. Cold War In 1950 half of the Finnish workers were occupied in agriculture and a third lived in urban areas.[24] The new jobs in manufacturing, services and trade quickly attracted people to the towns. The average number of births per woman declined from a baby boom peak of 3.5 in 1947 to 1.5 in 1973.[24] When baby-boomers entered the workforce, the economy did not generate jobs fast enough, and hundreds of thousands emigrated to the more industrialized Sweden, with emigration peaking in 1969 and 1970.[24] The 1952 Summer Olympics brought international visitors. Finland took part in trade liberalization in the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade. Urho Kekkonen, 8th President of Finland Officially claiming to be neutral, Finland lay in the grey zone between the Western countries and the Soviet Union. The YYA Treaty (Finno-Soviet Pact of Friendship, Cooperation, and Mutual Assistance) gave the Soviet Union some leverage in Finnish domestic politics. This was extensively exploited by President Urho Kekkonen against his opponents. He maintained an effective monopoly on Soviet relations from 1956 on, which was crucial for his continued popularity. In politics, there was a tendency of avoiding any policies and statements that could be interpreted as anti-Soviet. This phenomenon was given the name "Finlandisation" by the German press (fi. suomettuminen). Self-censorship vis-à-vis anything negative associated with the Soviet Union was prevalent in the media. Public libraries pulled from circulation thousands of books that were considered anti-Soviet, and the law made it possible for the authorities to directly censor movies with supposedly anti-Soviet content. Asylum-seeking Soviet citizens were frequently returned to the Soviet Union by the Finnish authorities.[citation needed] Despite close relations with the Soviet Union, Finland remained a Western European market economy. Various industries benefited from trade privileges with the Soviets, which explains the widespread support that pro-Soviet policies enjoyed among business interests in Finland. Economic growth was rapid in the postwar era, and by 1975 Finland's GDP per capita was the 15th highest in the world. In the 1970s and 1980s, Finland built one of the most extensive welfare states in the world. Finland also negotiated with the EEC (a predecessor of the European Union) a treaty that mostly abolished customs duties towards the EEC starting from 1977, although Finland did not fully join. In 1981, President Urho Kekkonen's failing health forced him to retire after holding office for 25 years.[citation needed] Miscalculated macroeconomic decisions, a banking crisis, the collapse of a primary trading partner (the Soviet Union) and a global economic downturn caused a deep recession in Finland in the early 1990s. The depression bottomed out in 1993, and Finland has seen steady economic growth ever since.[citation needed] Recent history Like other Nordic countries, Finland has liberalized its economy since the late 1980s. Financial and product market regulation was loosened. Some state enterprises have been privatized and there have been some modest tax cuts. Finland joined the European Union in 1995, and the Eurozone in 1999. The population is aging with the birth rate at 10.42 births per 1,000 population, or a fertility rate of 1.8.[24] With a median age of 41.6 years, Finland is one of the oldest countries;[25] half of voters are estimated to be over 50 years old. Like most European countries, without further reforms or much higher immigration, Finland is expected to struggle with demographics, even though macroeconomic projections are healthier than in most other developed countries. Politics and government Main article: Politics of Finland See also: List of political parties in Finland Republic of Finland This article is part of the series: Politics and government of Finland State Gov't Constitution Declaration of Independence Human rights Executive President List Tarja Halonen Prime Minister List Matti Vanhanen Executive Departments Council of State Legislative 35th Parliament Speaker Sauli Niinistö Judiciary General Courts Supreme Court Courts of Appeal District Courts Administrative Courts Supreme Administrative Court Regional Administrative Courts Prosecutor General Matti Kuusimäki Chancellor of Justice Elections 1991 parliamentary 1994 presidential EU Membership Referendum 1995 parliamentary 1996 European 1999 parliamentary 1999 European 2000 presidential 2003 parliamentary 2004 European 2006 presidential 2007 parliamentary Divisions Regions (Maakunnat) Sub-regions (Seutukunnat) Municipalities (Kunta) Political parties KESK (Centre Party) KOK (National Coalition Party) SDP (Social Democratic Party) VIHR (Green League) VAS (Left Alliance) KD (Christian Democrats) PS (True Finns) RKP (Swedish People Party) Politicians Foreign Policy Foreign relations Ambassadors Politics of the European Union Other countries · Atlas Politics portal view • talk • edit Eduskuntatalo, the main building of the Parliament of Finland (Eduskunta) in Helsinki. The Constitution of Finland defines the political system. Finland is a representative democracy with a semi-presidential parliamentary system. Aside from state-level politics, residents use their vote in municipal elections and in the European Union elections. According to the Constitution, the President of Finland is the head of state and responsible for foreign policy (which excludes affairs related to the European Union) in cooperation with the cabinet. Other powers include Commander-in-Chief, decree, and appointive powers. Direct vote is used to elect the president for a term of six years and maximum two consecutive terms. The current president is Tarja Halonen (SDP). The 200-member unicameral Parliament of Finland exercises the supreme legislative authority in Finland. The parliament may alter laws and the constitution, bring about the resignation of the Council of State, and override presidential vetoes. Its acts are not subject to judicial review. Various parliament committees listen to experts and prepare legislation. Proportional vote in multi-seat constituencies is used to elect the parliament for a term of four years. The Speaker of Parliament is currently Sauli Niinistö (National Coalition Party). The cabinet (the Finnish Council of State) exercises most executive powers. It is headed by the Prime Minister of Finland and includes other ministers and the Chancellor of Justice. Parliament majority decides its composition, and a vote of no confidence can be used to modify it. The current prime minister is Matti Vanhanen (Centre Party). Since equal and common suffrage was introduced in 1906, the parliament has been dominated by the Centre Party (former Agrarian Union), National Coalition Party, and Social Democrats, which have approximately equal support and represent 65–80% of voters. After 1944 Communists were a factor to consider for a few decades. The relative strengths of the parties vary only slightly in the elections because of the proportional election from multi-member districts, but there are some visible long-term trends. The autonomous Åland islands has separate elections, where Liberals for Åland was the largest party in 2007 elections. After the parliamentary elections on March 18, 2007, the seats were divided among eight parties as follows: Party Seats Net Gain/Loss  % of seats  % of votes Centre Party 51   –4 ? 25.5 23.1 National Coalition Party 50 +10 ? 25.0 22.3 Social Democratic Party 45   –8 ? 22.5 21.4 Left Alliance 17   –2 ? 8.5 8.8 Green League 14   +1 ? 7.5 8.5 Swedish People's Party 9   +1 ? 4.5 4.5 Christian Democrats 7     0 ? 3.5 4.9 True Finns 5   +2 ? 2.5 4.1 Others  1*     0 ? 0.5 2.4 * Province of Åland representative. Foreign relations Main article: Foreign relations of Finland According to the latest constitution of 2000, the president (currently Tarja Halonen) leads foreign policy in cooperation with the government (currently Prime Minister Matti Vanhanen and Foreign Minister Alexander Stubb), except that the government leads EU affairs.[26] In 2008, President Martti Ahtisaari was awarded the Nobel Peace Price.[27] Finland was considered a cooperative model state, and Finland did not oppose proposals for a common EU defence policy.[28] This was reversed in the 2000s, when Tarja Halonen and Erkki Tuomioja made Finland's official policy to resist other EU members' plans for common defense.[28] Geography Main article: Geography of Finland See also: List of cities and towns in Finland, List of lakes in Finland, and List of national parks of Finland Topography and geology Detailed map of Finland. See also atlas of Finland Pyhä-Luosto National Park, Lapland. Repovesi National Park in southeastern Finland. Finland is a country of thousands of lakes and islands – 187,888 lakes (larger than 500 m²) and 179,584 islands.[29] Its largest lake, Saimaa, is the fourth largest in Europe. The Finnish landscape is mostly flat with few hills, and its highest point, the Halti at 1,324 metres, is found in the extreme north of Lapland at the border between Finland and Norway. The landscape is covered mostly (seventy-five percent of land area) by coniferous ta