| Main | Births etc |
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| Southwest Finland Varsinais-Suomen maakunta Egentliga Finlands landskap |
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| — Region — | |||
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| Country | Finland | ||
| Historical province | Finland Proper | ||
| Area | |||
| • Total | 10,910.05 km2 (4,212.39 sq mi) | ||
| Population (2011) | |||
| • Total | 470,880 | ||
| • Density | 43/km2 (110/sq mi) | ||
| Time zone | EET (UTC+2) | ||
| • Summer (DST) | EEST (UTC+3) | ||
| ISO 3166 code | FI-19 | ||
| NUTS | 183 | ||
| Regional bird | Jackdaw | ||
| Regional fish | Baltic herring | ||
| Regional flower | Oak | ||
| Website | varsinais-suomi.fi | ||
Southwest Finland, also known in English as Finland Proper[1] (Finnish: Varsinais-Suomi, Swedish: Egentliga Finland) is the bilingual region in south-western Finland that borders the regions of Satakunta, Tavastia Proper, Åland and Uusimaa. Its capital and biggest city is Turku with 182,000 inhabitants, which was also the capital of Finland from its establishment around the 13th century until 1812.
The area comprising the southwest is largely the same as the historical province of Finland Proper, so named because it is the original home of the tribe known as the Finns. 5.7% of population of the region speaks Swedish natively.
Origin of the name[]
The name of Finland Proper has a historial function. In historic times, in the area of the present southern Finland lived three tribes, which were the Finns, the Tavastians and the Karelians. The southwestern part of the country, the province where the Finns lived, was called simply Finland (Finnish: Suomi). In the 17th century the name began to be used to refer to the whole land and a specified name for the lesser Finland was required. The first notes Fennigia specialiter dicta and Fennigia presse dicta were recorded in Latin in the 1650s and the Swedish Finland för sig sielft and Egenteliga Finland later in the 18th century the modern form Egentliga Finland being in official use at the end of the century. The Finnish term Varsinais-Suomi became established only around the 1850s.[2]
Historical Provinces[]
Municipalities[]
The region of Varsinais-Suomi is made up of 28 municipalities, of which 11 are towns.
Towns[]
Finland Proper Sub-regions, towns and municipalities
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Other municipalities[]
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Politics[]
Results of the Finnish parliamentary election, 2015 in Finland Proper:
- National Coalition Party 21.0%
- Finns Party 19.3%
- Centre Party 16.2%
- Social Democratic Party 15.5%
- Left Alliance 10.3%
- Green League 8.7%
- Swedish People's Party 5.0%
- Christian Democrats 2.4%
- Other parties 1.6%
Heraldry[]
The region uses the coat of arms of the historical province of Finland Proper.
Gallery[]
.JPG "Lieto, Nautelankoski, 13.9.07 (6).JPG (2.56 MB)")
Notes[]
- ^ The regional council of the region uses the name "Southwest Finland". Despite this, the Language Planning Department of Finland recommends the name "Varsinais-Suomi" as suggested in the statement by the Interior Ministry of Finland in 1988. The Institute for Languages of Finland lists the official English name as "Varsinais-Suomi".
- ^ Suomalainen paikannimikirja. Jyväskylä: Gummerus. 2007. ISBN 978-951-593-976-0.
External links[]
Finland Proper travel guide from Wikivoyage
Template:Regions of Finland Coordinates:
| This page uses content from the English language Wikipedia. The original content was at Southwest Finland. The list of authors can be seen in the page history. As with this Familypedia wiki, the content of Wikipedia is available under the Creative Commons License. |