History UsefulNotes / Finland

* UsefulNotes/KalleRovanpera - Rally driver (2021 Rally Estonia winner; also holds the record for being the youngest WRC rally winner at the age of 20)

* Lauri Markkanen – Current [[UsefulNotes/NationalBasketballAssociation NBA]] player with the Chicago Bulls.

War reparations to the Soviet Union required heavy industry and turned out to jump-start Finland's development from rural backwoods to advanced, well-to-do backwoods. The country remained neutral throughout the UsefulNotes/ColdWar through concessions ("Finlandization," including buying [=MiG=]-21s and other weapons from the USSR) and extremely careful diplomacy. Afterwards it joined UsefulNotes/TheEuropeanUnion in 1995 and adopted the Euro in 2002.

Modern Finland is a wealthy and stable nation. There's a high tax rate and a lot of vaguely Minnesotan, rather than Alaskan, nature. The country is probably best known as an exporter of mobile phones (Nokia is a Finnish firm), heavy metal bands, and racing drivers. Finns successful in any form of racing, be it on skis, wheels or feet, are invariably known as "Flying Finns."

* '''Highest point:''' Halti (1324 m/4,344 ft) (158th)

* '''Highest point:''' Halti (1324 m/4,344 ft) (143rd)

* '''Highest point:''' Halti (1324 m/4,344 ft) (161st)

* '''Country calling code:''' 358

* '''ISO-3166-1 Code:''' FI

* HIM - 'Love Metal' band

* '''Area:''' 338,455 sq km (130,678 sq mi) (65th)

* '''Area:''' 338,455 km (130,678 sq mi) (65th)

** Prime Minister: Sanna Marin

Since 2019, the country’s Prime Minister is Sanna Marin of the Social Democratic Party. At only 34 upon taking office, she’s the country’s youngest ever PM and the second youngest head of state in the world. [[note]]Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurtz is nine months younger than she is.[[/note]]

Finland ('''Finnish:''' ''Suomi'', '''Swedish:''' ''Finland''), officially known as the Republic of Finland ('''Finnish:''' ''Suomen tasavalta'', '''Swedish:''' ''Republiken Finland''), is a large, mostly empty Northern European country squeezed between UsefulNotes/{{Sweden}} and UsefulNotes/{{Russia}}, with its northern border being shared with UsefulNotes/{{Norway}}. Though ethnically distinct from both, it has generally been ruled by one or the other for most of its history. After centuries of Swedish domination (leading to Finland still having a sizable Swedish-speaking minority), it was handed over to Russia in 1809 and remained under the Tsar until the revolutions of 1917 gave it the chance to break free.

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/finland_flag_8343.png

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* Michael Widenius – co-creator of [=MySQL=] (with Swedish developer David Axmark).

The Finnish language is notoriously alien-looking to speakers of Indo-European languages (such as English and Swedish)[[note]]In the context of all the languages in the world, however, it isn't particularly strange[[/note]]; it is part of the completely unrelated Uralic group (including the closely related Estonian, the very distantly related Hungarian, the Sámi languages spoken in Lapland, and a number of minority languages in Russia). It was this strangeness that attracted Creator/JRRTolkien to the language, and he used Finnish as the basis for his invented Elvish languages (specifically Quenya) -- though he later changed the spelling to a more Latinate form that would look more appealing to English eyes. That said, Finnish is actually spelled very much like classical Latin, probably because Finnish spelling was deliberately created a relatively short time ago. After thousands of years of sharing land with both Slavic and Germanic tribes, expect a lot of borrowings to crop up, some ancient and unchanged to this day.

For some unknown reason, Finnish overrepresentation is almost a RunningGag amongst online communities. Finns have a large presence on this wiki, possibly the largest from a non-English-speaking nation. Finland was one of the first countries on adopting the Internet, and many IT innovations, such as social media and mobile technology, originate in Finland. In addition, one of the two original developers of MySQL, itself based in Sweden before being acquired by Sun (and eventually Oracle), is from Helsinki.

* Michael Widenius – co-creator of MySQL (with Swedish developer David Axmark).

* Aleksis Kivi - The Finnish national author responsible for the first Finnish-language novel, ''SevenBrothers''.

Finland was neutral in UsefulNotes/WorldWarTwo for the first three months, ending with the Soviet invasion late November 1939. In one of the less likely outcomes of recent memory, the Finnish army (outnumbered 4 to 1 in men and ''200 to 1'' in tanks) [[UsefulNotes/FinnsWithFearsomeForests handed the Red Army their asses on a plate and preserved Finnish independence]], though the Soviets gained the port city of Vyborg and much of the Finnish region of Karelia. Better people than tropers have tried to determine which side actually won. It all started in 1939, when UsefulNotes/JosephStalin decided to conquer Finland, partially to use it as a buffer against UsefulNotes/AdolfHitler's army. That started the brief but brutal Winter War, which the small country technically did not win, despite killing way more of the invading soldiers than losing its own. The stalemate did not result in permanent peace, and Finland attacked the USSR in 1941 with German support (arguably in self-defense), becoming the only democratic state technically on the Axis side. Once again, neither side won, but Finland retained its independence. After making peace with the Soviets, the country had (at Moscow's insistence) to expel the Germans from its soil by force, resulting in additional destruction. The Soviets ended up keeping their territorial gains. This long sequence of events has given wargame designers headaches to this day.

Finland was neutral in UsefulNotes/WorldWarTwo for the first three months, ending with the Soviet invasion late November 1939. In one of the less likely outcomes of recent memory, the Finnish army (outnumbered 4 to 1 in men and ''200 to 1'' in tanks) [[UsefulNotes/FinnsWithFearsomeForests handed the Red Army their asses on a plate and preserved Finnish independence]], though the Soviets gained the port of Viborg and a slice of Finnish territory. Better people than tropers have tried to determine which side actually won. It all started in 1939, when UsefulNotes/JosephStalin decided to conquer Finland, partially to use it as a buffer against UsefulNotes/AdolfHitler's army. That started the brief but brutal Winter War, which the small country technically did not win, despite killing way more of the invading soldiers than losing its own. The stalemate did not result in permanent peace, and Finland allegedly attacked the USSR in 1941 with German-supplied weapons (according to some sources, in self defense), becoming the only democratic state technically on the Axis side. Neither side won, but Finland retained its independence. After making peace with the Soviets, the country had (at Moscow's insistence) to expel the Germans from its soil by force (which resulted in additional destruction). The Soviets still ended up with a chunk of Finnish territory, East Karelia. This long sequence of events has given wargame designers headaches to this day.

War reparations to the Soviet Union required heavy industry and turned out to jump-start Finland's development from rural backwoods to advanced, well-to-do backwoods. The country remained neutral throughout the UsefulNotes/ColdWar through concessions ("Finlandization," including buying [=MiG=]-21s and other weapons from the USSR) and fancy footwork. Afterwards it joined UsefulNotes/TheEuropeanUnion in 1995 and adopted the Euro in 2002.

Since 2019, the country’s Prime Minister is Sanna Marin of the Social Democratic Party. At only 34 upon taking office, she’s the country’s youngest ever PM and the second youngest head of state in the world. [[note]] Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurtz is nine months younger than she is. [[/note]]

Finland is the world's best country chosen by the Newsweek (''Take that Sweden!''). In fact, due to its awesome school system [[spoiler:and Newsweek's dodgy scoring system]] Finland got 102 points for education -- [[BrokeTheRatingScale out of 100]].

The Finnish language is notoriously alien-looking to speakers of Indo-European languages (such as English and Swedish)[[note]]In the context of all the languages in the world, however, it isn't particularly strange[[/note]]; it is part of the completely unrelated Uralic group (including the closely related Estonian, the very distantly related Hungarian, the Sámi languages spoken in Lapland, and a number of minority languages in Russia). It was this strangeness that attracted Creator/JRRTolkien to the language, and he used Finnish as the basis for his invented Elvish languages (specifically Quenya) -- though he later changed the spelling to a more Latinate form that would look more appealing to English eyes. That said, Finnish is actually spelled very much like classical Latin, probably because Finnish spelling was deliberately created a relatively short time ago. After thousands of years of sharing land with both slavic and germanic tribes, expect a lot of borrowings to crop up, some ancient and unchanged to this day.

The Finnish language is notoriously alien-looking to speakers of Indo-European languages (such as English and Swedish)[[note]]In the context of all the languages in the world, however, it isn't particularly strange[[/note]]; it is part of the completely unrelated Uralic group (including the closely related Estonian, the very distantly related Hungarian, the Sámi languages spoken in Lapland, and a number of minority languages in Russia). It was this strangeness that attracted Creator/JRRTolkien to the language, and he used Finnish as the basis for his invented Elvish languages (specifically Quenya) -- though he later changed the spelling to a more Latinate form that would look more appealing to English eyes. That said, Finnish is actually spelled very much like classical Latin, probably because Finnish spelling was deliberately created a relatively short time ago.

* Kimi Räikkönen - UsefulNotes/FormulaOne driver (world champion 2007), has moved on to the World Rally Championship - only to return to F1 after two seasons

* Matti Nykänen - Former ski-jumper (four-time Olympic gold medallist in 1984 & 1988), now the main source of income for the Finnish yellow press. The guy literally just divorces and remarries Mervi. Seriously, he'll soon probably have 20 divorces with that woman. Also received some international press attention after he was sentenced to prison after the attempted murder of a friend while drunk and after losing in finger-wrestling. The press attention was because he is an olympic gold winner.

Finland was neutral in UsefulNotes/WorldWarTwo for the first three months, ending with the Soviet invasion late November 1939. In one of the less likely outcomes of recent memory, the Finnish army (outnumbered 4 to 1 in men and ''200 to 1'' in tanks) [[UsefulNotes/FinnsWithFearsomeForests handed the Red Army their asses on a plate and preserved Finnish independence]]. The Soviets gained the port of Viborg and a slice of Finnish territory. Better people than tropers have tried to determine which side actually won. It all started in 1939, when UsefulNotes/JosephStalin decided to conquer Finland, partially to use it as a buffer against UsefulNotes/AdolfHitler's army. That started the brief but brutal Winter War, which the small country technically did not win, despite killing way more of the invading soldiers than losing its own. The stalemate did not result in permanent peace, and Finland allegedly attacked the USSR in 1941 with German-supplied weapons (according to some sources, in self defense), becoming the only democratic state technically on the Axis side. Neither side won, but Finland retained its independence. After making peace with the Soviets, the country had (at Moscow's insistence) to expel the Germans from its soil by force (which resulted in additional destruction). The Soviets still ended up with a chunk of Finnish territory, East Karelia. This long sequence of events has given wargame designers headaches to this day.

* Jean Sibelius - Composer

* HIM - 'Love Metal' band

* Music/{{Lordi}} - Hard Rock band, Series/EurovisionSongContest winners
* Music/{{Nightwish}} - [[strike:Rock]] Metal band
* Music/{{Finntroll}} - polka-metal band

* Music/ChildrenOfBodom - MelodicDeathMetal band.
* Skepticism - DoomMetal band (TropeCodifier for the funeral doom subgenre)
* Circle and Pharoah Overlord - Experimental rock bands (the latter began as an offshoot of the former).
* Creator/AkiKaurismaki - Film director, makes Creator/JimJarmusch-esque movies.
* Creator/RennyHarlin - Film director, made action movies in TheNineties.
* Alvar Aalto - Influential architect and designer.
* Elias Lönnrot - Philologist and creator of Literature/TheKalevala.
* Aleksis Kivi - The Finnish national author responsible for the first Finnish-language novel, ''SevenBrothers''.
* Joosa Riekkinen - Creator of the computer game ''VideoGame/{{Liero}}''.

* Rovio - Makers of ''VideoGame/AngryBirds''.
* Remedy Entertainment - Software developers, creators of ''VideoGame/DeathRally'', ''VideoGame/MaxPayne'' and ''VideoGame/AlanWake''.
* Creator/BugbearEntertainment - Another software developer, focused on racing games. Probably best known for the ''VideoGame/FlatOut'' games.
* Several classical musicians, including composers (Kaija Saariaho, Einojuhani Rautavaara), opera singers (Karita Mattila, Matti Salminen, Juha Uusitalo) and conductors (Esa-Pekka Salonen, Jorma Panula).

* Väinö Linna - Not so well-known abroad but second to only possibly Aleksis Kivi as an author within Finland. He is best known for his books ''Literature/TheUnknownSoldier'' (depicting the Continuation War (between Finland and Russia in 1941-1944 during WWII) from the point of view of ordinary soldiers) and ''Under the North Star'' (depicting the Finnish Civil War).
* Johan Ludvig Runeberg - writer of the epic ''Literature/TheTalesOfEnsignStal'' and the lyrics for the national anthem.
* Ville Virtanen - {{Trance}} producer, performs under the stage name Darude. Wrote "[[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_m-Jd_gV_oQ Sandstorm]]." Chances are you've heard it.
* Lauri and Anni Vuohensilta - Creators and hosts of the WebVideo/HydraulicPressChannel.
* Paavo Siljamäki - Another {{Trance}} producer, one-third of the group Above and Beyond.

* Keke Rosberg - UsefulNotes/FormulaOne driver (world champion 1982 and first Finn to compete successfully; there had been two before him but neither made a dent.)
** Nico Rosberg - his son, a UsefulNotes/FormulaOne driver (world champion 2016), races under a German license.