Some More Random Tidbits About Finland

In my first post with interesting facts about Finland (see here), a few people were a bit horrified by the fact that Finnish police have access to everyone’s tax records. Well, hold on to your hats folks, because in Finland, everyone has access to everyone else’s tax records. (Ditto in Norway, Sweden, and, to a lesser extent, Iceland.)

This includes: taxable income (salaries/wages), taxable capital income (dividends, rental income, capital gains), and the amount of tax paid. Every year, certain media outlets actually publish searchable databases with all this information for the country’s highest earners!

If it works for the “happiest country in the world,” I suspect they’re on to something.

Moving on:

• Finland is often called The Land of a Thousand Lakes. This might be the understatement of the year; the real number is closer to 188,000.
• Although that sounds like a lot of water, about 70% of the country is covered by forest. Finns are huge nature lovers and many of them own a remote cabin nestled on one of those 188,000 lakes.
• There are also a lot of islands… close to 180,000.
• Thanks to their policy of Everyman’s Rights (called jokamiehenoikeus in Finnish; it’s actually common practice across Scandinavia, the Nordics, and many other European countries), people are allowed to roam freely throughout nature—you can swim and camp on privately owned land!!
• Years ago, in a university class, I learned about different education systems and the only thing I remember from the lecture was that Finland was—at the time at least—considered to have the best education system in the world. Kids don’t start school until age 7, there’s very little standardized testing, nearly everything is publicly funded, and teachers are extremely highly regarded and required to have Master’s degrees.
• University tuition is free, and students are eligible to receive housing support.
• In 2010, Finland became the first country in the world to make broadband internet access a legal right.
• Kela (Finland’s social security system) gives every expectant mother a baby box filled with newborn essentials—clothes, blankets, toys, bedding, diapers, etc. Alternatively, you can take €170 instead of the baby items.
• The Finnish name for Finland is Suomi.
• Ironically (because everything seemed so quiet!), Finland has the highest number of heavy metal bands per capita in the world.
• One night John and I were exploring Helsinki on foot and came across people playing what we thought, at first, was baseball. But it looked bizarre. The bases weren’t in the right place! The pitcher was throwing the ball straight up in the air?! Turns out we were watching Finland’s national sport, pesäpallo. It’s similar to baseball, but also… very different. The bases are arranged in a zig-zag configuration, and the pitcher stands beside the batter and throws the ball up into the air vertically (instead of standing on a mound and throwing it toward them horizontally).
• For any gamers out there, Angry Birds and Clash of Clans both came from Finland.
• Rovaniemi is officially recognized as the hometown of Santa Claus.
• According to Guinness World Records, the Finnish word saippuakivikauppias is the longest palindrome in everyday use. If you’re curious, it means soapstone vendor.

That’s all I’ve got for Finland trivia.

• How would you feel about your friends, family, and coworkers having full access to your income and tax information?
• What do you think about free university tuition in Finland?
• Tell me some random trivia about your country!