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 Museum
in Haapsalu Historical regions in Estonia Swedish diaspora {{sweden-hist-stub