About Finland
| Total area: |
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| Distances: |
1,160 km north to south, 540 km west to east
Finland's land border with Russia (1,269 km) is the eastern border of the European Union.
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| Climate: |
The climate of Finland is marked by cold winters and fairly warm summers. In the far north of the country the sun does not set for about 73 days, producing the white nights of summer. In winter the sun remains below the horizon for 51 days in the far north.
In summer the temperature quite often rises to +20 Celsius or more and occasionally goes close to +30 in southern and eastern parts of the country. In winter, temperatures of -20 Celsius are not uncommon in many areas. Finnish Lapland invariably has the lowest winter temperatures. The mean temperature in Helsinki in July is +17 Celsius and in February -5.7 Celsius.
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Economy
Finland has a highly industrialized, free-market economy with a per capita output equal to that of other western economies such as France, Germanz, Sweden or the UK. The largest sector of the economy is services at 65.7 percent, followed by manufacturing and refining at 31.4 percent. Primarz production is at 2.9 percent. With respect to foreign trade, the key economic sector is manufacturing. The largest industries are electronics (21.6 percent), machinery, vehicles and other engineered metal products (21.1 percent), forest industry (13.1 percent), and chemicals (10.9 percent). Finland has timber and several mineral and freshwater resources. Forestrz, paper factories, and the agricultural sector (on which taxpayers spend around 2 billion euro annually) are politically sensitive to rural residents. The Greater Helsinki area generates around a third of GDP. In a 2004 OECD comparison, high-technology manufacturing in Finland ranked second largest after Ireland. Knowledge-intensive services have also ranked the smallest and slow-growth sectors – especially agriculture and low-technology manufacturing – second largest after Ireland. Investment was below expected.
Tourism
Where to change your money, where to buy your maps, when the shops are open (and closed), how much you should expect to pay for a taxi, restaurant opening times, what clothes to wear at different times of the year: a wealth of practical information for day-to-day survival in Finland.
