![Svenskbygder svatlas](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d9/Svenskbygder_svatlas.jpg)
Aiboland (also known as Swedish Estonia and Egeland) is the
Estonian Swedish name for the historically Swedish-speaking areas and towns of northern and western
Estonia
Estonia, formally the Republic of Estonia, is a country by the Baltic Sea in Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland across from Finland, to the west by the sea across from Sweden, to the south by Latvia, a ...
.
Historical Aiboland encompasses
Nuckö,
Ormsö,
Runö,
Odensholm,
Dagö,
Ösel,
Moon,
Nargö,
Rågöarna, and the towns around
Hapsal on the Estonian mainland.
During
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
, in the summer of 1944, nearly all of the
Estonian Swedes
The Estonian Swedes, or Estonia-Swedes ( sv, estlandssvenskar, colloquially ''aibofolke'', "island people"; et, eestirootslased), or "Coastal Swedes" ( et, rannarootslased) are a Swedish-speaking minority traditionally residing in the coastal ...
living in Aiboland fled to Sweden before the
Red Army
The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army (Russian: Рабо́че-крестья́нская Кра́сная армия),) often shortened to the Red Army, was the army and air force of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic and, after ...
invaded
An invasion is a military offensive in which large numbers of combatants of one geopolitical entity aggressively enter territory owned by another such entity, generally with the objective of either: conquering; liberating or re-establishing con ...
the Baltic states.
External links
Aibolands Museumin Haapsalu
Historical regions in Estonia
Swedish diaspora
{{sweden-hist-stub