Crossword clues for finland
finland
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Finland (; ; ), officially the Republic of Finland, is a sovereign state in Europe. A peninsula with the Gulf of Finland to the south and the Gulf of Bothnia to the west, the country has land borders with Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east. Estonia is south of the country across the Gulf of Finland. Finland is situated in the geographical region of Fennoscandia, which also includes Scandinavia. Finland's population is 5.5 million (2014), staying roughly on the same level over the past two decades. The majority of the population is concentrated in the southern region. In terms of area, it is the eighth largest country in Europe and the most sparsely populated country in the European Union.
Finland is a parliamentary republic with a central government based in the capital Helsinki, local governments in 317 municipalities, and an autonomous region, the Åland Islands. Over 1.4 million people live in the Greater Helsinki metropolitan area, which produces a third of the country's GDP. From the late 12th century, Finland was an integral part of Sweden, a legacy reflected in the prevalence of the Swedish language and its official status. In the spirit of the notion of Adolf Ivar Arwidsson (1791–1858), "we are no-longer Swedes, we do not want to become Russians, let us therefore be Finns", the Finnish national identity started to establish. Nevertheless, in 1809, Finland was incorporated into the Russian Empire as the autonomous Grand Duchy of Finland. In 1906, Finland became the second nation in the world to give the right to vote to all adult citizens and the first in the world to give all adult citizens the right to run for public office. Following the 1917 Russian Revolution, Finland declared itself independent.
In 1918, the fledgling state was divided by civil war, with the Bolshevik-leaning " Reds" supported by the equally new Soviet Union, fighting the " Whites", supported by the German Empire. After a brief attempt to establish a kingdom, the country became a republic. During World War II, the Soviet Union sought repeatedly to occupy Finland, with Finland losing parts of Karelia, Salla and Kuusamo, Petsamo and some islands, but retaining independence. Finland joined the United Nations in 1955 and established an official policy of neutrality. The Finno-Soviet Treaty of 1948 gave the Soviet Union some leverage in Finnish domestic politics during the Cold War era. Finland joined the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) in 1969, the NATO Partnership for Peace on 1994, the European Union in 1995, the Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council in 1997, and finally the Eurozone at its inception, in 1999.
Finland was a relative latecomer to industrialization, remaining a largely agrarian country until the 1950s. It rapidly developed an advanced economy while building an extensive Nordic-style welfare state, resulting in widespread prosperity and one of the highest per capita incomes in the world. However, since 2012 Finnish GDP growth has been negative, with a preceding nadir of −8% in 2009. Finland is a top performer in numerous metrics of national performance, including education, economic competitiveness, civil liberties, quality of life, and human development. In 2015, Finland was ranked first in the World Human Capital and the Press Freedom Index, and as the most stable country in the world in the Failed States Index, and second in the Global Gender Gap Report. A large majority of Finns are members of the Evangelical Lutheran Church, though freedom of religion is guaranteed under the Finnish Constitution.
In European elections, Finland is a constituency of the European Parliament, currently represented by thirteen MEPs. It covers the member state of Finland.
Finland is a country in Europe.
Finland may also refer to:
- Grand Duchy of Finland, predecessor state of the modern country, 1809–1917
- Diocese of Finland, predecessor of diocese of Turku
- Finland (European Parliament constituency)
- Finland, Minnesota, unincorporated community in the United States
- Finland, South Carolina, an unincorporated community in the United States
- Finland, a settlement in New Sweden at the site of modern Marcus Hook, Pennsylvania
- Suomi-Finland,a 1988 album by Finnish group Sielun Veljet
- "Finland" (comedy song), a 1980 song by Monty Python, first released on Monty Python's Contractual Obligation Album
- USS Finland (ID-4543), a World War I-era steamship
- New Finland, Saskatchewan, a Finnish block settlement district in Canada
"Finland" is a Monty Python comedy song written and performed by Michael Palin and arranged by John Du Prez with a guitar accompaniment. It features on Monty Python's Contractual Obligation Album from 1980, is also included on the CD Monty Python Sings, and was incorporated into the musical Spamalot.
It purports to be a celebration of Finland, a country that is overlooked when travelling abroad as "a poor second to Belgium", despite the fact that it "has it all" with lofty mountains and tall trees and pleasures including: pony trekking, camping or "just watching TV". (In reality, "mountains so lofty" are not characteristic of Finland as the Scandinavian Mountains only just touch the northwesternmost corner of the country.)
Palin gave an impromptu rendition of the song while travelling through Finland for the 1992 travel documentary Pole to Pole.
Usage examples of "finland".
During the night, thick banks of altocumulus clouds had moved in on a long front from the Gulf of Finland to the Ukraine.
In a little more than a day the Archerfish found herself off the coast of Finland.
Countess and I tasted our first triumph in her cellar, whither we conducted Sir Peter Grebe, the Crown-Prince of Monaco, Baron de Becasse, and his Majesty King Christian of Finland.
King of Finland, the Crown-Prince, and Baron de Becasse arrived together, a composite mass of medals, sashes, and academy palms.
The Bolshevist government has met with continual opposition from the opposing groups of Socialists in Russia and has been attacked by the Allies, principally on the Archangel front and in the Gulf of Finland.
Hamburg told me that confidential letters received by him from Erfurt led him to fear that the Emperor Alexander had communicated to Napoleon his designs on Finland, and that Napoleon had given his consent to the occupation.
Hitler to divide up Poland and to obtain a free hand to gobble up Latvia, Estonia, Finland and Bessarabia was not known outside Berlin and Moscow, but it would soon become evident from Soviet acts, and it would shock most of the world even at this late date.
Stalin expressly indicated Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, but did not mention Finland.
As a result of a sedulous study of historical sentimentalities, traditions, dialects and local feelings, a whole cluster of new sovereign Powers, Czechoslovakia, Jugoslavia, Finland, Esthonia, Latvia, Lithuania, an attenuated Hungary and an enlarged Roumania, was evoked to crowd and complicate the affairs of mankind by their sovereign liberties, their ambitions, hostilities, alliances, understandings, misunderstandings, open and secret treaties, tariffs, trade wars and the like.
Communist parties of Finland, Esthonia, Lithuania, of White Russia, the Ukraine, Poland, and Holland are at one with the Russian Communist Party.
The policy of Russification was carried on in Finland as well as in the more recent acquisitions.
Talks with the general staffs of Rumania, Hungary and Finland - the last country anxious now to win back what had been taken from her by the Russians in the winter war - were completed.
Chicago and Albany, in Yugoslavia and Puerto Rico, in Finland and New Zealand and Framingham, Massachusetts, among Japanese men living in Hawaii and Japanese physicians living in Japan, among West Australians, Trinidadians, and British civil servants, among 276,802 men followed for twelve years by the American Cancer Society, among 87,526 women nurses and 51,529 male health professionals in separate studies at Harvard, and among 123,840 patients at the Kaiser Permanente medical centers in the Bay Area.
Finland, but resolutely kept noting all he was able until he realized somewhere between checkmarks that Justin Nelson was pointing a gun right between his eyes.
He made a trip for a few hours to Finland, going as far as Pergalovo, an isolated town said to be frequented by the revolutionaries, then returned, much disturbed, to his hotel, after having written a last letter to Natacha imploring an interview.