$Unique_ID{COW01307} $Pretitle{367} $Title{Finland Front Matter} $Subtitle{} $Author{Theodore L. Stoddard} $Affiliation{HQ, Department of the Army} $Subject{miles finland country government percent united courts finnish handbook information} $Date{1974} $Log{} Country: Finland Book: Finland, A Country Study Author: Theodore L. Stoddard Affiliation: HQ, Department of the Army Date: 1974 Front Matter Authors: William K. Carr, Shaheen Dil, John Johnson, Carlo La Prota, Nils Orvik, Douglass K. Ramsey, Kirk H. Stone, Carla Loftberg Valenta, Jiri Valenta Foreword This volume is one of a series of handbooks prepared under the auspices of Foreign Area Studies (FAS) of The American University, designed to be useful to military and other personnel who need a convenient compilation of basic facts about the social, economic, political and military institutions and practices of various countries. The emphasis is on objective description of the nation's present society and the kinds of possible or probable changes that might be expected in the future. The handbook seeks to present as full and as balanced an integrated exposition as limitations on space and research time permit. It was compiled from information available in openly published material. An extensive bibliography is provided to permit recourse to other published sources for more detailed information. There has been no attempt to express any specific point of view or to make policy recommendations. The contents of the handbook represent the work of the authors and FAS and do not represent the official view of the United States Government. An effort has been made to make the handbook as comprehensive as possible. It can be expected, however, that the material, interpretations, and conclusions are subject to modification in the light of new information and developments. Such corrections, additions, and suggestions for factual, interpretive, or other change as readers may have will be welcomed for use in future revisions. Comments may be addressed to: The Director Foreign Area Studies The American University 5010 Wisconsin Avenue, N.W. Washington, D.C. 20016 Preface After surviving centuries of Swedish or Russian domination, the Finns established their independence as a republic in December 1917. Since World War II they have rapidly industrialized their economy and have successfully followed a foreign policy of active neutrality, serving as a buffer and as an occasional interlocutor between Eastern and Western powers. This handbook attempts to provide a comprehensive view of the dominant factors affecting the social, political, and economic life of the country. The approach is interdisciplinary, but the results are not exhaustive. The authors are indebted to numerous United States government officials and members of the Finnish communities in Washington, D.C., and New York for their generous and thoughtful guidance to the wealth of official and scholarly information available. Nevertheless, there appears to be a serious lack of definitive information on the Finnish social system. Many terms appearing in this handbook have Swedish alternates, but only the Finnish spelling is used. Unless otherwise stated, tons used in production and commodity figures are metric tons. An index has been compiled for the benefit of the reader. Country Summary 1. COUNTRY: Republic of Finland, an independent country since December 1917, is the northernmost nation on the European continent. 2. GOVERNMENT: A democracy with legislative power invested by the Constitution of 1919 in a unicameral Parliament and president. Executive power is vested in the president and the State Council (cabinet), appointed by the president and responsible to Parliament. The Constitution of 1919 has been supplemented by fundamental laws including the Parliament Act of 1928, governing legislation; the Impeachment Act of 1922, creating a High Court of Impeachment; and the Ahvenanmaa Islands Act of 1951, granting them internal autonomy. 3. POPULATION: 4,683,000 people in December 1970, declining from a peak of 4,704,321 people the preceding January. The decline is attributed primarily to emigration (mainly to Sweden), which peaked in 1970 at 45,565 people. 4. GEOGRAPHICAL DESCRIPTION: Topography. The land slopes gradually from low northern mountains toward narrow coastal plains on the south and west. A massive lake district occupies the southeastern part of the country. Soils are thin and poorly developed but they support a dense boreal forest covering 70 percent of the land surface and providing the country's major natural resource. Area including lakes is 130,126 square miles; greatest length, 724 miles north to south; greatest width, 337 miles east to west. Borders Sweden on the west for 335 miles, Norway on the north for 453 miles, the Soviet Union on the east for 788 miles. About 690 miles of coast extends along the western (Gulf of Bothnia) and southern (Gulf of Finland) shores. Climate. Ameliorating effects from the gulf stream keep temperatures higher than the Arctic situation suggests. The February mean ranges from 26F in the south to minus 7F in the north; the July mean ranges from 63F in the south to 55F in the north. Precipitation ranges from twenty-seven inches per year in the southwest to sixteen inches in the northwest. 5. LANGUAGES: Finnish is spoken by 93 percent of the population and Swedish, by about 6.5 percent; both are official languages. 6. RELIGION: Freedom of religious belief and association is guaranteed by law. The Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland is the state church, and its membership claims about 93 percent of the population. The Finnish Orthodox Church claims about 1.6 percent, and the remainder belongs to smaller religious groups or is not affiliated with any organized religion. 7. EDUCATION: Compulsory and free for first eight years. Private and public secondary schools provide either vocational or liberal arts curriculum. Seven universities and eight other institutions of higher learning located in seven cities. Adult education in folk high schools is free. Literacy is virtually 100 percent. 8. HEALTH: Medical care and facilities thoroughly socialized. Facilities provided one hospital bed for each seventy-two persons in the late 1960s. One physician per 1,081 persons. Diseases of the circulatory system accounted for the highest death rate (372 per 100,000 persons in the 1960s). Malignant tumors and tuberculosis also major health problems. 9. JUSTICE: Administered by independent courts, including courts of justice, circuit courts, town courts, courts of appeal, and the Supreme Court. Law is codified and some derives from the eighteenth century. 10. ADMINISTRATIVE DIVISIONS: Twelve provinces, each with a governor appointed by the president. Local government units are communes, which undertake such functions as local planning, providing local services, schools, and welfare. There were 515 communes in 1971 of which 78 were urban, 437 were rural. 11. ECONOMY: Basically industrial. Public utilities, transports, and services are the largest industries in terms of production and employment. Private enterprise predominates in an essentially free market. 12. EXPORTS: Primarily wood and wood products, especially paper; also machinery and metal products. Primarily to the United Kingdom the Soviet Union, and Sweden. 13. IMPORTS: Raw materials, especially fuels, minerals, and chemicals. Primarily from the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany), the United Kingdom, and Sweden. 14. FINANCE: The Bank of Finland, a bank of issue supervised by Parliament, controls the monetary system. The markka, or Finnmark (Fmk), is the monetary unit. The currency is convertible, and the rate of exchange established with the International Monetary Fund in 1967 is Fmk4.2 equal US $1. 15. COMMUNICATIONS: At the close of 1969 there were 4,754 post offices, 827 telegraph offices, 1,089,700 telephones, 1,744,039 radio licenses, and 1,014,523 television licenses. These services are government owned. 16. RAILROADS: In 1969 there were 3,553 miles of railroad lines, of which all but twenty-four miles were owned by the government. The five-foot-gauge tracks carried trains with 25.6 million passengers and 22.4 million metric tons of freight during that year. 17. RIVERS: In addition to 4,100 miles of navigable rivers in 1969 there were 25,770 miles of floatable logways. The Saimaa Canal and adjacent deepwater channels in Lake Saimaa in southeastern Finland provided another 323 miles of navigable waterway. 18. ROADS: In 1970 there were 24,760 miles of main roads and 19,940 miles of local roads. By the end of the year there were 643,057 cars, 45,210 trucks, 51,825 vans, and 7,861 buses. 19. AIR TRANSPORT: Finnair and many international airlines bring passengers in and out of the country. In 1969 domestic airplanes flew 10.5 million miles and carried 1,035,280 passengers over a network connecting seventeen airports. During the same year 13,970 tons of freight and mail also were carried by air. 20. MERCHANT MARINE: In 1969 there were 508 vessels aggregating 1,242,300 gross tons serving twenty-three ports. 21. INTERNATIONAL AGREEMENTS, MEMBERSHIPS AND TREATIES: Agreement of Friendship, Cooperation, and Mutual Assistance signed with the Soviet Union in 1948 and reaffirmed in 1955 and 1970 obliges Finland to forestall an attack on the Soviet Union through Finland. Member of the council of ministers of defense of Nordic countries; United Nations and its agencies; the Nordic Council; the Social Security Convention; the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT); the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD); the European Free Trade Association (EFTA). Receives most-favored-nation treatment from the Soviet Union; maintains commercial missions with both the German Democratic Republic (East Germany) and West Germany, and cultural exchange programs with the United States. 22. ARMED FORCES: Military service is compulsory. The defense forces are limited by the 1947 peace treaty. In 1972 the total armed forces included about 39,500 men on active duty-34,000 in the army; 2,500 in the navy; and 3,000 in the air force. Reserves totaled about 685,000.