A variety of ethnic groups have long existed in
Finland
Finland ( fi, Suomi ; sv, Finland ), officially the Republic of Finland (; ), is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It shares land borders with Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of B ...
. Prominent examples include the Swedish speaking minority within the country and the Sami peoples in the north. With modern international migration to Finland, different ethnolinguistics groups populate the country, most prominently in
Helsinki
Helsinki ( or ; ; sv, Helsingfors, ) is the Capital city, capital, primate city, primate, and List of cities and towns in Finland, most populous city of Finland. Located on the shore of the Gulf of Finland, it is the seat of the region of U ...
.
Finland-Swedes
The largest minority group in Finland is the Swedish-speaking Finns, who in 2018 numbered about 282,300, with all Swedish speakers in the country making a total of 288,400 which is 5.2% of the total population. Municipalities are classified as either monolingual or bilingual with a majority language. Most Swedish-speakers live in unilingual Swedish-speaking municipalities. These municipalities are found in coastal areas, from Ostrobothnia to the southern coast, and in the archipelago of
Åland
Åland ( fi, Ahvenanmaa: ; ; ) is an Federacy, autonomous and Demilitarized zone, demilitarised region of Finland since 1920 by a decision of the League of Nations. It is the smallest region of Finland by area and population, with a size of 1 ...
.
[Text from PD source: US Library of Congress: ]
A Country Study: Finland
', Library of Congress Call Number DL1012 .A74 1990.
Russians
Russians in Finland
Russians in Finland or Russian Finns constitute a linguistic and ethnic minority in Finland. About 30,000 people have citizenship of the Russian Federation, had come from two major waves. About 5,000 originate from a population that immigrated in the 19th and early 20th centuries, when Finland was a
grand duchy
A grand duchy is a sovereign state, country or territory whose official head of state or ruler is a monarch bearing the title of grand duke or grand duchess.
Relatively rare until the abolition of the Holy Roman Empire in 1806, the term was oft ...
of
Imperial Russia
The Russian Empire was an empire and the final period of the List of Russian monarchs, Russian monarchy from 1721 to 1917, ruling across large parts of Eurasia. It succeeded the Tsardom of Russia following the Treaty of Nystad, which ended th ...
. Another consisted of those who immigrated after the dissolution of the
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...
. A significant catalyst was the
right of return
The right of return is a principle in international law which guarantees everyone's right of voluntary return to, or re-entry to, their country of origin or of citizenship. The right of return is part of the broader human rights concept freedom of ...
, based on President
Koivisto's initiative that people of
Ingrian ancestry would be allowed to immigrate to Finland.
About 30,000 people have citizenship of the
Russian Federation
Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia, Northern Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the ...
(2015)
and Russian is the mother language of about 70,000 people in Finland, which represents about 1.3% of the population.
[Population of mainland Finland (excluding Åland) according to language, 1990-2015](_blank)
Statistics Finland
Karelians
In 2011 there were about 30,000 people who identified as
Karelian in Finland. About 5,000 of them are fluent or native in the
Karelian language
Karelian (North Karelian and Livvi Karelian: ; Ludic: ; Tver Karelian: ) is a Finnic language spoken mainly in the Russian Republic of Karelia. Linguistically, Karelian is closely related to the Finnish dialects spoken in eastern Finland, and so ...
but about 25,000 of them can speak Karelian. The Karelians are a closely related ethnic group to Finns. Karelians in Finland mostly live in a diaspora around the country and in North Karelia. All dialects of Karelian are spoken in Finland. Before 2009 Karelian was taught as a dialect of Finnish, but in 2009 it was given official status as a language in Finland.
Sami
The Sami are related to the Finns, and each people speaks a non-Indo-European language belonging to the
Uralic family of languages. Once present throughout the country, the Sami gradually moved northward under the pressure of the advancing Finns. As they were a nomadic people in a sparsely settled land, the Sami were always able to find new and open territory in which to follow their traditional activities of hunting, fishing, and slash-and-burn agriculture. By the 16th century, most Sami lived in the northern half of the country, and it was during this period that they converted to Christianity. By the 19th century, most of them lived in the parts of Lapland that were still their home in the 1980s. The last major shift in Sami settlement was the migration westward of 600
Skolt Sami from the
Petsamo Petsamo may refer to:
* Petsamo Province, a province of Finland from 1921 to 1922
* Petsamo, Tampere, a district in Tampere, Finland
* Pechengsky District, Russia, formerly known as Petsamo
* Pechenga (urban-type settlement), Murmansk Oblast, Russi ...
region after it was ceded to the Soviet Union in 1944. A reminder of their eastern origin was their Orthodox faith; the remaining 85 percent of Finland's Sami were Lutheran.
In 1988, about 90 percent of Finland's 4,400 Sami-speaking citizens lived in the municipalities of
Enontekiö
Enontekiö (; sme, Eanodat ; sv, Enontekis; smn, Iänudâh; sms, Jeänõk) is a municipality in the Finnish part of Lapland with approx. inhabitants. It is situated in the outermost northwest of the country and occupies a large and very spars ...
,
Inari
Inari may refer to:
Shinto
* Inari Ōkami, a Shinto spirit
** Mount Inari in Japan, site of Fushimi Inari-taisha, the main Shinto shrine to Inari
** Inari Shrine, shrines to the Shinto god Inari
* Inari-zushi, a type of sushi
Places
* Inari, ...
, and
Utsjoki
Utsjoki (; sme, Ohcejohka ; smn, Uccjuuhâ; sms, Uccjokk; no, Utsjok) is a municipality in Finland, the northernmost in the country. It is in Lapland and borders Norway as well as the municipality of Inari. The municipality was founded in 187 ...
, and in the reindeer-herding area of
Sodankylä
Sodankylä (; sme, Soađegilli ; smn, Suáđigil; sms, Suäʹđjel) is a municipality of Finland. It is located in the region of Lapland, and lies at the northern end of Highway 5 ( E63) and along Highway 4 ( E75). The Kitinen River flows ne ...
. According to Finnish regulations, anyone who spoke one of the
Sami languages
Acronyms
* SAMI, ''Synchronized Accessible Media Interchange'', a closed-captioning format developed by Microsoft
* Saudi Arabian Military Industries, a government-owned defence company
* South African Malaria Initiative, a virtual expertise net ...
, or who had a relative who was a Sami, was registered as a Sami in census records. Finnish Sami spoke three distinct
Sami languages
Acronyms
* SAMI, ''Synchronized Accessible Media Interchange'', a closed-captioning format developed by Microsoft
* Saudi Arabian Military Industries, a government-owned defence company
* South African Malaria Initiative, a virtual expertise net ...
, but by the late 1980s perhaps only a minority actually had Sami as their first language. Sami children had the right to instruction in Sami, but there were few qualified instructors or textbooks available. One reason for the scarcity of written material in Sami is that the three Sami languages spoken in Finland made agreement on a common orthography difficult. Perhaps these shortcomings explained why a 1979 study found the educational level of Sami to be considerably lower than that of other Finns.
Few Finnish Sami actually led the traditional nomadic life pictured in school geography texts and in travel brochures. Although many Sami living in rural regions of Lapland earned some of their livelihood from reindeer herding, it was estimated that Sami owned no more than one-third of Finland's 200,000 reindeer. Only 5 percent of Finnish Sami had the herds of 250 to 300 reindeer needed to live entirely from this kind of work. Most Sami worked at more routine activities, including farming, construction, and service industries such as tourism. Often a variety of jobs and sources of income supported Sami families, which were, on the average, twice the size of a typical Finnish family. Sami also were aided by old-age pensions and by government welfare, which provided a greater share of their income than it did for Finns as a whole.
There have been many efforts over the years by Finnish authorities to safeguard the Sami' culture and way of life and to ease their entry into modern society. Officials created bodies that dealt with the Sami minority, or formed committees that studied their situation. An early body was the Society for the Promotion of Lapp Culture, formed in 1932. In 1960 the government created the Advisory Commission on Lapp Affairs. The Sami themselves formed the Saami-liitto in 1945 and the Johti Sabmelazzat, a more aggressive organization, in 1968. In 1973 the government arranged for elections every four years to a twenty-member Sami Parliaments that was to advise authorities. On the international level, there was the Nordic Sami Council of 1956, and there has been a regularly occurring regional conference since then that represented—in addition to Finland's Sami—Norway's 20,000 Sami, Sweden's 10,000 Sami, and the 1,000 to 2,000 Sami who remained in the Kola Peninsula in Russia.
Sami languages have an official status in the municipalities of
Enontekiö
Enontekiö (; sme, Eanodat ; sv, Enontekis; smn, Iänudâh; sms, Jeänõk) is a municipality in the Finnish part of Lapland with approx. inhabitants. It is situated in the outermost northwest of the country and occupies a large and very spars ...
,
Inari
Inari may refer to:
Shinto
* Inari Ōkami, a Shinto spirit
** Mount Inari in Japan, site of Fushimi Inari-taisha, the main Shinto shrine to Inari
** Inari Shrine, shrines to the Shinto god Inari
* Inari-zushi, a type of sushi
Places
* Inari, ...
, and
Utsjoki
Utsjoki (; sme, Ohcejohka ; smn, Uccjuuhâ; sms, Uccjokk; no, Utsjok) is a municipality in Finland, the northernmost in the country. It is in Lapland and borders Norway as well as the municipality of Inari. The municipality was founded in 187 ...
, and in the northern part of
Sodankylä
Sodankylä (; sme, Soađegilli ; smn, Suáđigil; sms, Suäʹđjel) is a municipality of Finland. It is located in the region of Lapland, and lies at the northern end of Highway 5 ( E63) and along Highway 4 ( E75). The Kitinen River flows ne ...
since 1992.
In 2009, 55% of the 9,350 Sami in Finland lived outside of this area.
Romani
Romani people
The Romani (also spelled Romany or Rromani , ), colloquially known as the Roma, are an Indo-Aryan ethnic group, traditionally nomadic itinerants. They live in Europe and Anatolia, and have diaspora populations located worldwide, with sig ...
, also called Kale and Roma, have been present in Finland since the second half of the 16th century. With their unusual dress, unique customs, and specialized trades for earning their livelihood, Roma have stood out, and their stay in the country has not been an easy one. They have suffered periodic harassment from the hands of both private citizens and public officials, and the last of the special laws directed against them was repealed only in 1883. Even in the second half of the 1980s, Finland's 5,000 to 6,000 Romani remained a distinct group, separated from the general population both by their own choice and by the fears and the prejudices many Finns felt toward them.
Finnish Roma, like Roma elsewhere, chose to live apart from the dominant societal groups. A Roma's loyalty was to his or her family and to their people in general. Marriages with non-Roma were uncommon, and the Roma's own language, spoken as a first language only by a few in the 1980s, was used to keep outsiders away. An individual's place within Roma society was largely determined by age and by sex, old males having authority. A highly developed system of values and a code of conduct governed a Roma's behavior, and when Roma sanctions, violent or not, were imposed, for example via "blood feuds," they had far more meaning than any legal or social sanctions of Finnish society.
Unlike the Sami, who lived concentrated in a single region, the Romani lived throughout Finland. While most Sami wore ordinary clothing in their everyday life, Romani could be identified by their dress; the men generally wore high boots and the women almost always dressed in very full, long velvet skirts. Like most Sami, however, Roma also had largely abandoned a nomadic way of life and had permanent residences. Romani men had for centuries worked as horse traders, but they had adapted themselves to postwar Finland by being active as horse breeders and as dealers in cars and scrap metal. Women continued their traditional trades of fortune telling and handicrafts.
Since the 1960s, Finnish authorities have undertaken measures to improve the Romani's standard of life. Generous state financial arrangements have improved their housing. Their low educational level (an estimated 20 percent of adult Romani could not read) was raised, in part, through more vocational training. A permanent Advisory Commission on Gypsy Affairs was set up in 1968, and in 1970 racial discrimination was outlawed through an addition to the penal code. The law punished blatant acts such as barring Romani from restaurants or shops or subjecting them to unusual surveillance by shopkeepers or the police.
Jews
There are about 1,300
Jews
Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...
in Finland, 800 of whom live in Helsinki and most of the remainder live in Turku. During the period of Swedish rule, Jews had been forbidden to live in Finland. Once the country became part of the Russian Empire, however, Jewish veterans of the Tsarist army had the right to settle anywhere they wished within the empire. Although constrained by law to follow certain occupations, mainly those connected with the sale of clothes, the Jewish community in Finland was able to prosper, and by 1890 it numbered around 1,000. Finnish independence brought complete civil rights, and during the interwar period there were some 2,000 Jews in Finland, most of them living in urban areas in the south. During World War II, Finnish authorities refused to deliver Jews to the Third Reich, and the country's Jewish community survived the war virtually intact. By the 1980s, assimilation and emigration had significantly reduced the size of the community, and it was only with some difficulty that it maintained synagogues, schools, libraries, and other pertinent institutions.
Tatars
The community of
Finnish Tatars
The Finnish Tatars (Tatar language, Tatar: ''финляндия татарлары'', Finnish language, Finnish: ''Suomen tataarit, Swedish language, Swedish: Finländska tatarer'') are an ethnic minority in Finland whose community has approxima ...
numbers only about 800. The Tatars first came to Finland from the Russian Volga region near Nizni Novgorod's Tatar villages in the mid-19th century; a Tatar presence has continued in Finland in the century and a half since, with Tatars chiefly active in commerce. The Tatars in Finland have significantly integrated into the Finnish society but continue to maintain their different religion, mother tongue, and ethnic culture.
References
{{Reflist
Ethnic groups in Finland
Demographics of Finland