The northernmost country on the European continent, Finland
covers an area of 130,128 square miles, the size of the New England
states, New York, and New Jersey combined. It shares borders on the
west with Sweden for 335 miles, on the north with Norway for 447
miles, and on the east with the Soviet Union for 788 miles. About 688
miles of coastline on the Gulf of Finland (south), the Baltic Sea (south-
west), and the Gulf of Bothnia (west) is deeply fragmented and studded
with islands (see fig. 1 ).

One-third of Finland lies north of the Arctic Circle, and the geogra-
phy of the country reflects its northern situation in many ways. The
surface of the land was scoured and gouged in recent geological times
by glaciers that left thin deposits of gravel, sand, and clay.

In the south these deposits dammed the drainage systems, and the
depressions north of them filled with water to form tens of thousands
of lakes that occupy more than 9 percent of the country. The land in
the south is relatively low -- altitudes range from 200 to 400 feet above
sea level -- and rises gradually from the southwest to the northeast.

The severe northern climate is moderated by warming effects from
the Gulf Stream along the Norwegian coast, from the waters of the
interior lakes when they are not frozen, and from the dense coniferous
forest that covers more than two-thirds of the land. Continental high-
pressure systems sometimes prevail, however, and result in excep-
tionally cold winters and hot summers. Snow cover lasts up to ninety
days in the Ahvenanmaa Islands off the southwest coast and up to 250
days in the north. Precipitation ranges from twenty-seven inches a
year in the southwest to sixteen inches in the northwest.

Finland's population, stabilized in the 1950s and 1960s at somewhat
more than 4 million people, was reported in the 1970 census to be
roughly 4.7 million. The total was expected to decline slowly through-
out the remainder of the century. Growth patterns, both overall and
regional, had been greatly affected by external and internal forces, by
spontaneous spreading as well as sponsored group colonizing, and by
forced as well as intentional retreating of settlement. In the early
1970s the country was experiencing an internal reversal of population
spread from a historic direction northeastward to a contemporary one
southwestward.

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