Welcome to Finland, the land of lakes! Explore the forested south or the vast Northern Lights-lit northern landscape in this guide.

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Subdivisions

Finland is divided into 19 regions, of which Åland is covered in a separate guide. These are the 18 remaining regions (names are in Finnish-Swedish-English):

• Etelä-Karjala

  Södra Karelen

  Southern Karelia

• Etelä-Pohjanmaa

  Södra Österbotten

  Southern Ostrobothnia

• Etelä-Savo

  Södra Savolax

  Southern Savonia

• Kainuu

  Kajanaland

  Kainuu

• Kanta-Häme

  Egentliga Tavastland

  Tavastia Proper

• Keski-Pohjanmaa

  Mellersta Österbotten

  Central Ostrobothnia

• Keski-Suomi

  Mellersta Finland

  Central Finland

• Kymenlaakso

  Kymmenedalen

  Kymenlaakso

• Lappi

  Lappland

  Lapland

• Pirkanmaa

  Birkaland

  Pirkanmaa

• Pohjanmaa

  Österbotten

  Ostrobothnia

• Pohjois-Karjala

  Norra Karelen

  Northern Karelia

• Pohjois-Pohjanmaa

  Norra Österbotten

  Northern Ostrobothnia

• Pohjois-Savo

  Norra Savolax

  Northern Savonia

• Päijät-Häme

  Päijänne-Tavastland

  Päijänne Tavastia

• Satakunta

  Satakunda

  Satakunta

• Uusimaa

  Nyland

  Uusimaa

• Varsinais-Suomi

  Egentliga Finland

  Finland Proper

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License Plates

As a member of the EU, Finland's license plates feature a blue band on the left side of the plate with the EU circle of stars and the country code FIN. Plates are white with black text: FINABC-123.

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Phone Codes

Phone numbers are not very helpful as most businesses don't use area codes. If you manage to stumble upon one of them, they are typically prefixed with a zero (0) and are fairly well arranged by region:

• 01x Series

  13. Northern Karelia
  14. Central Finland
  15. Southern Savonia
  16. Lapland
  17. Northern Savonia
  18. Åland
  19. Uusimaa

• 02x-09x Series

  (Except 020, 050, 060, 080, and 029)

  2. Satakunta

     Finland Proper

  3. Tavastia Proper

     Päijänne Tavastia

  4. N/A

  5. Southern Karelia

     Kymenlaakso

  6. Ostrobothnia

     Central Ostrobothnia

     Southern Ostrobothnia

  7. N/A

  8. Northern Ostrobothnia

     Kainuu

  9. Helsinki

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Roads, Markings, and Signage

Road Markings

Lines on the side are continuous except at intersections. Small roads have no central line. Central line is dashed, and an additional continuous central line appears where it is prohibited to overtake other cars.

Regular :

No overtaking, central line is either white or yellow :

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Highways & Road Numbering Schemes

The Finnish road network is divided into four tiers: first- (valtatie) and second-class (kantatie) main roads, regional roads (seututie), and connecting roads (yhdystiet).

Class I Main Roads (Valtatie)

These are the largest highways in Finland, and are signposted with white text on a red background. They can be numbered up to 29: 7. Highways 1-7 radiate outwards from Helsinki, 8-10 from Turku, and 11 and 12 start in Tampere. There is no discernible pattern to the numbering of the remaining routes, but they typically connect large cities together.

Class II Main Roads (Kantatie)

These highways complement the Class I main roads, and are signposted with black text on a yellow background. They can be numbered between 40 and 93: 45. There is some clustering of the numbering system, and it generally increases to the north and to the east.

Regional and Connecting Roads (Maantie)

These are more minor roads that are mostly regional. They can have either three or four digits, and the two kinds are signed differently. 3-digit roads are called seututie, and are signposted with black text on a white background: 123. 4-digit roads are called yhdystie, and are signposted with white text on a blue background: 1234. Yhdystie numbers are usually derived from a nearby seututie number by adding a digit onto the end, so route 1456 branches off route 145.

These routes are roughly organized by region, but can spill over into neighboring areas. Here are the regions, by the first digit:

1. South
2. Southwest
3. Central-East
4. Southeast
5. East
6. Central-West
7. Northwest
8. North
9. Far North / Lapland

Helsinki Ring Roads

Helsinki has three ring roads that are signposted with Roman numerals. Since Helsinki is bilingual, these signs bear both the words Kehä FI and Ring SE, followed by the Roman numeral I, II, or III. However, these ring routes aren't shown on the map, instead using their traditional route number:

1. Ring I: 101
2. Ring II: 102
3. Ring III: 50

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Architecture

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Language

Finland has two official languages: Finnish and Swedish. Swedish bears many similarities to other Scandinavian languages like Danish and Norwegian, but Finnish, as a Uralic language, is vastly different from most European languages. It is most similar to Estonian, another Finnic Uralic language, and bears slightly less similarities to Hungarian, which is also Uralic but on a different branch. Finnish is characterized by the frequent presence of double vowels, especially of A and O.

Script

Finnish is written using the Latin alphabet, plus five additional characters:

Aa Bb Cc Dd Ee Ff Gg Hh Ii Jj
Kk Ll Mm Nn Oo Pp Qq Rr Ss Tt
Uu Vv Ww Xx Yy Zz Åå Ää Öö Šš Žž

Only Ä and Ö are frequently used in Finnish; Å is mainly used for Swedish names, while Š and Ž are used rarely, typically in loanwords. B, C, F, Q, W, X, Z, Å, Š, and Ž are reserved for foreign words.

The Swedish alphabet is similar, using all the same characters except Š and Ž.

Samples

Finnish

Kaikki ihmiset syntyvät vapaina ja tasavertaisina arvoltaan ja oikeuksiltaan. Heille on annettu järki ja omatunto, ja heidän on toimittava toisiaan kohtaan veljeyden hengessä.

Swedish

Alla människor är födda fria och lika i värdighet och rättigheter. De är utrustade med förnuft och samvete och bör handla gentemot varandra i en anda av broderskap.

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Most Similar

Estonia

Sweden