Islands

Finland is an unparalleled country of archipelagos and watercourses viewed in an European perspective. In addition to sea archipelagos there exist in Finland considerable freshwater archipelagos. Altogether there are 179 584 islands. The same goes for the phrase about the country of thousands of lakes. There exist 187 888 of them.

54 000 inhabitants live permanently in the Finnish archipelagos, of these people 8 769 live all the year round on 455 islands without a permanent road connection with the mainland. In addition to that there live 26 000 inhabitants on the autonomous Åland Islands.

Boating and recreational fishing are very popular hobbies, the amount of recreational residents of the archipelagos is around 1,8 millions. The recreational residents, nature lovers, recreational fishermen, boating people and tourists are all the time more and more noticeable users of services and thus important elements in the context of the insular lines of business development.

Statistics

Finland:

5,3 million inhabitants
area 338 419,31 km²
population density 17,4 / km² (2007)

Waterways:

area of lakes 34 518,65 km²
sea area 52 760 km²

coast-line 314 604 km

179 584 islands

of these 76 000 with an
area more than 0,5 ha

187 888 lakes with an area
more than 500 m²

the cubic content of water
in them 230 km³

647 rivers

In the archipelago areas:

54 000 inhabitants

of these 8 769 without a permanent road connection with the mainland

26 000 inhabitants on the Åland Islands
1,8 million recreational residents
461 000 recreational residences
700 000 boats
1,2 millions recreational fishermen

The map on the right:

Finland's island municipalities and part island municipalities.
In reference to the Åland Islands a particular legislation is relevant.

Sources: Wikipedia, the Island Committee, the Island Development Programme 2007-2010

Finnish and Swedish

Finland is a bilingual country. In the archipelago this manifests itself in such a way that the lake archipelagos are inhabited mainly by Finnish speaking people, while on many of the sea islands the majority speaks Swedish. The law guarantees, in addition of using the national languages of Finnish and Swedish, the Sami as well as the Roma and other groups the right to maintain and develop their own language and culture.

The autonomous Åland Islands are an entirely Swedish language region. The Province, which belongs to Finland, has its own governing bodies and member of parliament. Åland also has a flag of its own, as well as own stamps and a public service radio and television company.

Regional differences concerning the islander identity

The living conditions of the islanders of inland waterways, on one hand, and those of the people living in a maritime environment, on the other, vary somewhat, although the residences of both are surrounded by water. In the maritime archipelagos, in particular, there are a lot of small islands inhabited permanently just by one or a couple of families.

The islander identity has been studied in several doctoral dissertations and research in that field is still going on. For example the inhabitants of the inner archipelago in the vicinity of the mainland coast keep mentally a closer contact to the mainland and to its services, whilst by tradition inhabitants of the outer archipelago have learned to make ends meet more independently. The Swedish speaking inhabitants of the archipelago seem, in addition, to have taken in a firmer islander identity than their Finnish speaking neighbours.

It can be pointed out, as a curiosity, that according to academic studies the healthiest and longest living Finns are to be found in the Gulf of Bothnia archipelago where Swedish is spoken as the majority language. It has been claimed that a firm confidence, a social capital and joint security networks create the basics of health and longevity. The longest living people in the world, as far as is known, also live on an island, on Okinawa in Japan!

Nature as an object of protection and as cultural heritage

The archipelago environment is our common fortune. The endeavors to promote the well-being of the Baltic Sea area are particularly important for the insular inhabitants. In protection of biodiversity the national parks are in a central position. Within maritime areas the following ones can be found: the Perämeri National Park (in the northern part of the Gulf of Bothnia), the Ekenäs Archipelago National Park, and the Eastern Gulf of Finland National Park. Also within the realm of the inland waterways there exist national parks founded by the State.

UNESCO, an organization affiliated with the United Nations, has in the year of 1994 founded a biosphere reserve at the Archipelago National Park. The Biosphere Reserves form a global network of model areas of sustainable development in connection with protected areas. Among our neighbor countries, also the Western Estonian Islands have a Biosphere Reserve representing an archipelago environment. The purpose of the Archipelago Sea Biosphere Reserve is to at the same time protect and develop the region around the Archipelago Sea, with united strengths, together with researches, decision-makers and the islanders. The first UNESCO World Natural Heritage site in Finland is in the Kvarken Archipelago (the middle-part of the Gulf of Bothnia).

The Island Develompent Act as a safeguard

There has been in force in Finland since 1981 the Island Development Act (available in Finnish and Swedish), exceptional in the European scale (the Åland Islands have got legal regulations of their own). The Act obliges the State and the municipal communes to work to the best of their abilities to advance the insular lines of business, communications, services and the environment.

The Council of State decides on a commissioned Island Committee. It is a permanent statutory body, acting for the benefit of insular areas, jointly with municipal communes, government instances and other parties. According to the Island Development Programme 2007-2010, endorsed by the Council of State, objects for regional development, in addition to archipelagos, are the sea, the lakes, the rivers and the littoral zone.

The connections as a challenge

The most important and essential prerequisites for islanders are safe communications between islands and from islands to the mainland. In Finland the State is financing communications by commuter ferries free of charge for the better part of the archipelagos with round-the-year habitation. The car ferries, the cable ferries, and the commuter ferries are of a considerable importance also as regards tourists and recreational residents.

The connections of the archipelagos are comparable with the mainland road connections, and, consequently, the State is kept responsible for them to the same extent as for public roads. So far the service functions of the white commuter ferries (available in Finnish and Swedish) are not protected by any particular legislation, they are just dependent on the government budget of any given year. Communications by the yellow car ferries and cable ferries, on the other hand, have an established role comparable with ordinary road traffic.

Life on an island deviates in many a way from that of people living in the countryside of the mainland Finland. Conditions of the nature characterize much more tangibly the everyday life of the insular people. Communications during winter will then issue their own challenges in the form of changing ice conditions and thaw seasons.

Communications may be hampered by storms. Since the ferry sailings are sparse it is not possible to keep on working on the mainland side on a daily basis. Also the school attendance of children is can be facing problems because of the communications. Both get services and products to the islands are time-taking and expensive.

Telecommunications problems

The mail is delivered to mainland addresses almost irrespectively of weather conditions, which for most of us is a self-evident fact. The deliverance of mail to several of the small islands is, however, facing every now and then great difficulties; the inhabitants may be compelled to lengthy waits.

To many of the islands mail is delivered only in case passengers to those islands are carried as well. Thus it is quite possible that mail to an island resident may sail onboard a commuter ferry for many days.

Telecommunication, which in our current society plays a growing role, is of an utmost importance for insular inhabitants, who are not able to carry out their businesses in shops and with authorities any time during a day. Many of the inhabitants also telecommute from his or her home island or from a recreational residence situated in one of the archipelagos.

The wireless systems can be troubled with dead spaces and interruptions, and their price/quality relation is not always at the level of the systems based on stationary networks. One is sometimes obliged to pay more for a slower telephone connection.

These facts mean that the business enterprises of the archipelagos are put in a disadvantageous position which again diminishes their competitive ability. The plans of the telecom operator TeliaSonera, which is partially owned by the State, to dismantle its stationary networks in areas with scattered settlement in order to replace them with wireless systems make it harder for the entrepreneurs' in the archipelago to survive.

Changes in the structures of municipal communes

The Project to restructure local government and services, initiated by the Council of State has rearranged the previous division of municipalities.

In the beginning of 2009 several incorporations took place. For example, the archipelago of Hitis, which already previously formed a part of Dragsfjärd municipality, became a part of Kimitoö municipality. The self-governing municipalities of western Turunmaa, covering the area between Iniö and Nagu, have together with Pargas built up a large insular town Väståboland. Merimasku, Rymättylä and Velkua municipalities, again, joined the town of Naantali.

Incorporations are not, however, planned everywhere. The island municipality of Hailuoto, situated in the vicinity of Oulu, in the northern part of the Gulf of Bothnia, with its 1 000 inhabitants has decided to continue as a self-governing municipality.

The islanders consider the changes brought by the incorporations with reserve. They are afraid that the decision-making will slip further out from their hands, and they will easily be put into a minority in these new large municipalities. Great hopes are, consequently, invested in village activity projects.

Diversification as a success factor

Central items for the development of the archipelago a local culture and a community of interests. We must care for the insular way of living, for craftmanship and the construction tradition.

The subsistence of the insular people has always been based on more than one source. In addition to the traditional agriculture and fishing, tourism is the line of business which is growing fastest for the time being, but also the importance of well-fare services is gaining in significance. Diversification is thus the best guarantee for the continuation of a living archipelago, and also the fact that there live people of different age groups, babies as well as grandparents.