Finland consists of 6 provinces (Finnish: läänit, Swedish: län). The provincial authority is part of the central government's executive branch. It is not democratically controlled except through the national parliament and the President of Finland. The system was created in 1634, and its makeup was changed drastically in 1997, when the number of the provinces was reduced from 12 to 6. This effectively made them purely administrative units, as the linguistic or cultural variations do not follow the borders of the provinces. The State of Finland is since the late 19th century bilingual. Its governmental offices and agencies use both domestic languages in contacts with the public.
Each province is led by a governor (maaherra, landshövding) who is appointed by the president after a proposal by the cabinet. The governor is the head of the State Provincial Office (lääninhallitus, länsstyrelse) which act as the joint regional authority for seven ministries in the following domains:
- social services and health care
- education and culture
- police administration
- rescue services
- traffic administration
- competition and consumer affairs
- judicial administration
The official administrative subentities under the Provincial Office authorities are the Registry Offices (Finnish maistraatti, Swedish magistrat), and State Local Districts (Finnish kihlakunta, Swedish härad), which are districts for police, assessment and attorney services. These do not necessarily correspond to municipal level (municipality, sub-region, region) divisions of the country.
The Governor's post is widely known as a post for "disposal" of retiring politicians.
| No. |
Provinces |
Finnish and
Swedish names |
Residence city |
Population (2003) |
Area (km²) |
Merged Provinces (1997) |
| 1. |
Southern Finland |
Etelä-Suomen lääni
Södra Finlands län |
Hämeenlinna
Tavastehus |
2,116,914 |
34,378 |
Uusimaa, Kymi, Tavastia |
| 2. |
Western Finland |
Länsi-Suomen lääni
Västra Finlands län |
Turku
Åbo |
1,848,269 |
74,185 |
Vaasa, Turku-Pori, Central Finland, Tavastia (Pirkanmaa) |
| 3. |
Eastern Finland |
Itä-Suomen lääni, Östra Finlands län |
Mikkeli
S:t Michel |
582,781 |
48,726 |
Kuopio, North Karelia, Mikkeli |
| 4. |
Oulu |
Oulun lääni
Uleåborgs län |
Oulu
Uleåborg |
458,504 |
57,000 |
No changes |
| 5. |
Lapland |
Lapin lääni
Lapplands län |
Rovaniemi
Rovaniemi |
186,917 |
98,946 |
No changes |
| 6. |
Åland¹ |
Ahvenanmaan lääni
Ålands län² |
Maarianhamina
Mariehamn² |
26,000 |
6,784 |
No changes |
1/ Some duties, which in Mainland Finland are handled by the provinces, are on the Åland Islands transferred to the autonomous Government of Åland.
2/ The Åland Islands are unilingually Swedish.
See also
External links
