Q. Name of area
Finland
Q. Current status:
Nation state.
Q. If the area has no current legal identity, when was it defined and by whom?
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Q. Outline history: describe the historical development of the unit, as it affected its external borders and internal boundaries:
As far as we know the area covered by present-day Finland did not form any (more or less) clear-cut territorial units until the late Middle Ages when the growing powers of Sweden in the west and Novgorod in the east expanded and established their presence in the area. A peace treaty between these two powers was signed in 1323, and what is known as the first eastern border of Finland (Sweden) was defined. The exact borderline is not known, and it is still debated where, in particular, its northernmost part was set. In any case, the "Finnish territory" was split into two halves. Moreover, entire Lapland (extending further south than nowadays) remained outside these territorial arrangements. In fact, the political borders of this region, jointly controlled by Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Russia, were not defined until the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
Sweden was able to gain more territories in its possession from Russia, and as a result the border was pushed further east in the peace treaties of 1595 and 1617. After the latter treaty the eastern border was roughly the same as what has become known as the "lawful" border of independent Finland (= known as "the borders of 1939"). Before that the border, however, was redrawn several times. The relative political strength between Sweden and Russia started to change at the turn of the eighteenth century, and Russia was able to capture large territories from the Swedes. In the peace treaty of Uusikaupunki in 1721 Sweden ceded, in addition to her Baltic provinces and Ingria (Ingermanland), Karelia around Lake Ladoga. The resulting eastern border of Sweden was roughly the same as the present-day borderline of Finland facing Russia. After yet another war Sweden lost further territories from south-eastern Finland in 1743.
The course of history was significantly changed in 1809, when Sweden lost all of her Finnish territories to Russia. These territories were not simply annexed to Russia, but they were established to form an autonomous Grand Duchy under the rule of the Russian Emperor. During a period of just a few decades all borders of the Grand Duchy were defined, and from hereon it is fully legitimate to talk about a territorial unit called Finland. First, the western border of the newly established Grand Duchy was drawn to follow River Tornio in 1809. The northern border had been partly defined already in 1751 when Sweden and Norway had divided the northern-most areas in the region. Second, the northern border between Russia and Finland was defined in 1826. Third, the eastern border between Russia and the Grand Duchy of Finland changed already in 1812, when the territory of "Old Finland", i.e., the Karelian areas lost by Sweden in 1721 and 1743, were annexed to the Grand Duchy. Fourth, the rest of the eastern border was, for the first time, accurately defined in 1833. The resulting territory of Finland remained largely unchanged until 1940 (1944), when Finland lost most of the Province of Viipuri (nearly equal to the Karelian region lost by Sweden in 1721) to Soviet Union. In addition, Finland lost sizeable territories in the north, including the Petsamo region (a pathway to the Arctic Ocean) that had been annexed to Finland in the Treaty of Dorpat in 1920.
Q. Describe the MODERN hierarchy of geographical areas used for civil administration:
The numbers refer to the situation at the end of 1998.
The bottom layer consists of municipalities or communes (kunta), total number of which are 452 (population size ranges from 126 to 546,317 inhabitants). A municipality can be either a city (kaupunki; most of them urban by common definitions), or "other municipality" (muu kunta; mostly rural). Even though there are small municipalities in Finland, they are and have been reasonably large units by European standard. The next layer consists of counties or regions (maakunta, numbering 21), and the top layer consists of 6 provinces, one of which is the autonomous province of Åland (lääni). The counties have little administrative significance as such. However, they (or, a combination of a few of them) are the basis for various regional classifications of government authorities (e.g., 15 Employment and Economic Centres have been formed on the basis of these units).
Q. How long has this system existed?
The present system is young; it dates from 1997. It was formed to follow the EU regional classification system, NUTS. In this system the municipalities are on NUTS level 5 and the counties are on NUTS level 3. As such, the system of municipalities and administrative provinces go back a long time.
Q. Describe earlier administrative geographies:
Even though the present division of administrative units is a young one, the system has existed in essence from 1865, and in a sense, even many hundred years before that date. The need to establish a new layer of counties was deemed necessary in 1997 when the number of provinces was reduced from 12 to six. In fact, there were (and still are) intermediate units called historical counties (kihlakunta). They are old units that have had administrative and judicial functions, but they lost most of their administrative significance in 1945 when the offices of bailiffs (principal officials of the historical counties) were discontinued.
Both the historical counties and provinces existed long before 1865, but on the municipal level this year is a landmark. The present municipal system with its administrative bodies was created by a degree issued that year. The decree stated that from thereon the territory of each rural church parish was to be established as a municipality with its general meeting and elected officials (the towns and cities had their own historical privileges and administrative system). To fully understand this change one has to know a few essential facts. First, there was no freedom of religion in Finland. The country was divided into territorial Lutheran parishes, and each person resident in Finland had to be a parish member. The other church that had a legitimate position was the Greek Orthodox Church, and a few of the territorial parishes, in fact, were Greek Orthodox, all of them in the easternmost parts of the country (in Karelia). Second, the church parishes had gradually become important administrative units dealing with many aspects of local administration (poor relief, primary education, building and maintaining of public constructions, such as schools and parish granaries). The administrative body was the parish meeting, chaired by the parish minister. The ministers had in reality become part-time municipal managers. Thus, the purpose of the 1865 decree was to separate the local civil administration from the ecclesiastical one. The new municipality system replaced the old municipalities (pitäjä) which had been both administrative and judicial units. In older times, the municipal courts had had many administrative functions, and the court sessions had been as much general meetings of the local populace as courts of law. In terms of boundaries the 1865 change had a limited significance, because in most cases the church parishes and the old municipalities had had identical boundaries. Nonetheless, in a number of cases, particularly in southwestern Finland this was not the case. These exceptions affect the entire structure of civil and ecclesiastical administrative units in these regions. In such cases not only the church parishes do not cover the same areas as the old municipalities, but the boundaries of the historical counties divert from the deaneries, and the boundaries of the provinces divert from the dioceses. Another matter of importance in this respect is that, based on the 1865 decree, also a subsidiary chapelry could form a municipality of its own, if this subsidiary parish had its own chaplain. A mother parish and its subsidiary chapelries formed a unit called rectorate, and it was this unit that corresponded to the old municipalities. Therefore, the number of new municipalities was actually notably larger than the number of old municipalities.
The pre-1865 system of well-organized administrative units had been established in the early 17th century. Administrative municipalities and historical counties (as judicial units), however, are of much older origin, and they date back maybe to the pre-historic period (prior to the thirteenth century). Also higher-level administrative regions have existed during the previous centuries, but they have shown much variability in time.
Q. Can we identify a hierarchy of broadly similar units that exist for all countries?
As far as the other Nordic countries go, the reply is affirmative, but I am no as sure regarding other European countries.
Q. When was the first national census of population carried out?
Finland shares the Swedish population registration system. Thus, the first census was taken in 1749. However, this was not a census in the sense the question implies. The first census was an inventory of the Communion Books of the Lutheran parishes. The parish ministers used these records to count the number of population and report the number of their parishioners classified by sex, age, civil status, and source of livelihood. The product was a parish-level set of statistical tables (referred to as Population Tables). The Communion Books were continuously updated records of the parishioners (normally used from five to ten years before being replaced by a new volume), and no listings of the population referring to a specific census date exist. The first "true" (nominative) national census was finally taken in 1950.
Q. Outline the later history of the census. Have censuses been carried out at regular intervals, and if so with what frequency?
The "inventory censuses" were taken every year until 1751, then every third year until 1775, then every five years until 1880, and finally every ten years until 1940. The nominative censuses have been taken in 1950, 1960, 1970, 1975, 1980, and 1985. Since 1990 the censuses have been based on various individual-based computerised administrative registers and housing registers.
Q. What are the main geographical units used in published reports? Have these changed over time?
Very little had been published prior to the late 1860s when a statistical office (present-day Statistics Finland) was established. Some older statistics exist and the units are administrative provinces. Ever since the census of 1865 the results have been published for individual municipalities and provinces. Starting in 1997 the data are no longer published by provinces, but have been replaced by county data.
Q. Is there access to more detailed unpublished information? If so, what geographical units do these refer to? Here again, have these units changed over time?
Since the pre-1950 census data were based on the registers of church parishes, the unpublished statistical tables exist for each church parish. Starting in the late nineteenth century the number of church parishes grew much faster than the number of municipalities. Many growing cities were split between two or several Lutheran church parishes, and liberalisation of the religious rules resulted in the introduction of other denominations in Finland. It should be realised though that the new church parishes were often not territorially exclusive. For example, a separate congregation could be established for Finnish-speakers in a Swedish-speaking region.
Starting in 1774 the parish-level Population Tables were compiled separately for each part of a church parish belonging to different civil municipalities. Therefore, between 1774 and 1865 the population statistics (the Population Tables) can be aggregated by using either the ecclesiastical (church parish => deanery => diocese) or the civil administrative divisions (old municipality => historical county => province).
Ever since the census of 1970 each person belonging to the same dwelling has been given an identical dwelling unit code. Each dwelling can be placed on a map divided into 250m * 250m grid cells.
Q. What publications describe the history of the census, and of census geographies? Are any available in English?
In English:
Pitkänen, Kari & Mauri Nieminen (1984), ‘The history of population registration and demographic data collection in Finland’, In National Population Bibliographies: Finland, The International Union for the Scientific Study of Population and The Finnish Demographic Society: Helsinki, pp. 11-22.
Pitkänen, Kari (1980), ‘Registering people in a changing society - The case of Finland’, Yearbook of Population Research in Finland, XVIII, Population Research Institute: Helsinki, pp. 60-79.
Many others exist in Finnish or Swedish.
Q. When was the recording of vital events (births, marriages and deaths) first required by law?
The Lutheran parish ministers were required to record baptisms, burials, and marriages by the 1686 (Swedish) Church Law. The Law was preceded by some local decrees with similar obligations.
Q. What organisation was responsible for recording vital events? How has this changed over time?
Each church parish was initially responsible for recording the vital events. After the collection of vital statistics had been initiated by the (Swedish) government in 1749, the baptismal and burial records started to evolve to actual birth and death records. The system was not changed until the turn of the twentieth century. Step by step the responsibility of recording vital events was transferred to various functionaries (to physicians regarding the deaths, to hospitals and midwives regarding the births, to district courts regarding the divorces, etc.). This was a slow process starting in 1893 (overseas migrations) and ending in 1950 (internal migrations).
Q. What geographical units were used in recording vital events?
As is the case regarding the censuses, the basic unit is a church parish. The original parish registers exist for most parishes since the early eighteenth century, and for some parishes even prior to that date. Starting in 1749 the vital events were tabulated by the parish ministers as part of the Swedish system of population data collection. The resulting sets of tables are called Population Change Tables. These Tables are available for each church parish (starting from 1830 for each Greek Orthodox parish as well), and from 1774 to 1865 for each section of the parishes belonging to different civil municipalities. The early published data concern mostly provinces, and from 1865 onwards also municipalities.
Starting in 1997 the data were no longer published by provinces, but have been replaced by county data.
Ever since 1970 the dwelling has been recorded in conjunction of all vital events. Since each dwelling can be placed on a map divided into 250m * 250m grid cells, the same concerns each individual death, birth, etc.
Q. What historical taxation records exist for your area?
There are two major sets of taxation records: 1) tax listings of landed property, 2) poll tax records. The former consist of rural farmsteads, and the latter of individuals subjected to pay the poll tax. The former set starts around the year 1540. They are little more than just lists of rural farmsteads and (starting in 1662) lists of pieces of land and water in their possession, and in fact, they were transformed into the Finnish cadastral system in 1895 (which, in turn, has existed in a computerised form since 1994). The poll tax was introduced in 1634 and discontinued in 1924, after which date the poll tax records have been used as civil population registers (in conjunction to the ecclesiastical ones).
There also are various other historical tax records. The government’s imagination to tax diverse kinds of functions and items had no obvious limits. Many of these tax lists, however, were not long-lived. Some other tax records have historical significance, however. For example, in 1571 a special property tax (so-called silver tax) was collected to buy out the fortress of Älvsborg that had been taken over by the Danes.
Q. What geographical units do these use?
Since the records are for government taxes, the units are nearly always the civil municipalities, first the old municipalities, and after 1865 the new municipalities. In some cases the geographical division in the tax records follows the ecclesiastical division.
Q. What other major sources exist, and what geographical units do they use?
1) Court records of which the oldest existing ones are from the sixteenth century. These records not only have ordinary civil and criminal cases, but they also include lots of material of administrative nature (estate inventory deeds, inspections of farmsteads, purchases and other transfers of landed property). Even though the civil and judicial administrations were separated in the early 17th century, the civil municipalities served as the basis for the judicial division even after the administrative change. However, in many cases a court district consisted of more than one civil municipality. Furthermore, the higher-level units, the appeal courts formed their own geographical units (the number of appeal courts has always been smaller than the number of provinces).
2) Statistical reports on economic activities. Around the middle of the nineteenth century a system of administrative reports on economic activities was created. As the basis of the system were the annual reports of the rural police chiefs (government functionaries in civil municipalities). These were aggregated and complemented with additional information by the bailiffs of the historical counties. These county reports, in turn, were aggregated and complemented with additional information on the province level. At first the reports were largely verbal, but gradually more and more statistics were incorporated in the reports after the mid-nineteenth century. Starting in the late 1860s the province-level reports have been published as a series in the Official Statistics (until 1900 when this kind of reporting was deemed outdated and replaced with more sophisticated systems). The reports give information on production of agriculture and manufacturing industries, number of livestock, number of ships, public construction works, etc.). As can be concluded from the above description, the geographical units used are municipalities, historical counties, and provinces (the province level reports have only selected statistics on the municipality or county level).
Q. When was the first computerised map of administrative units created?
This became a standard procedure in the 1980s, but afterwards a computerised map has been created showing the administrative units in 1939 (the national borders of 1939).
Q. What does it show?
As is the case with the computerised maps of the 1980s, the 1939 map is based on municipalities, which can be aggregated to obtain higher-level administrative divisions. Presently, the computerised maps show also smaller units, particularly sub-divisions of towns and cities. In fact, the first digitised maps were created on the municipality level in the early 1980s, by the city of Helsinki.
Q. How easily is it to obtain a copy?
All computerised maps are sold at Karttakeskus, a government owned company. They happily sell them, but the prices are reasonably high, and the transaction, of course, does not waive Karttakeskus’s property rights.
Q. Who was responsible for changing boundaries? How has this changed over time?
To change any boundary of an administrative unit, civil or ecclesiastical, was and has been for centuries a formal process, and the final decision was made by the legislative body (during older times the sovereign, and later, the parliament). To change the boundaries between farmsteads or other landed property, the decisions were taken by the provincial governments.
Q. Who was responsible for creating a legal record of boundary changes?
See above.
Q. What records have been preserved of boundary changes? Are they published or unpublished? How do they describe the old and new boundaries? How accurately do they give the dates of changes?
Because boundary changes of administrative units have been legal matters, they have been published in the Statutes of Finland. They give the exact date of the change, but the accuracy of the description depends on the case. If, for example, an entire municipality was incorporated into another province, the boundary change is known accurately, supposing that the boundaries of the municipalities are known. However, most boundary changes (particularly from the late nineteenth century onward) involved only sub-divisions of municipalities. The description details the names of the farmsteads, villages, etc., or in later times, the register numbers of the pieces of the landed property. No such boundary changes, however, were decided without a proper land survey. To get a detailed description of the boundary changes one needs to contact one of the District Survey Offices which are responsible for surveys and holding the resulting documents and maps.
Q. Who was responsible for mapping your area? When was this organisation created?
The National Land Survey (Maanmittauslaitos) and the subordinated District Survey Offices (maanmittaustoimisto). The National Land Survey of Finland was created in 1811, after Finland had been annexed to Russia. A corresponding office, however, had been created in Sweden, the former mother country, already in the early seventeenth century.
Q. When did systematic mapping of boundaries begin?
In a sense in the early seventeenth century when the surveys of farmsteads were begun. They show the boundaries for landed property, and when combined, they served as a basis for more comprehensive maps.
Q. What maps are available showing boundaries?
The first maps covering Finland, and its province, county, and civil municipality boundaries were published in 1798-99 (mostly 1:540,000, partly 1:720,000). Several comprehensive and updated maps were published in the nineteenth century and early twentieth century showing also the boundaries for each (civil) administrative units. The most important ones are the general maps published in 1841-73 (1:400,000) and in 1891-1927 (1:400,000). General updated maps have been published at relatively frequent intervals in the twentieth century.
The first city maps of Finnish were published in 1837-41 (1:3,200 - 1:10,000).
Q. For periods before maps are available, are there descriptions of boundaries in words? Where are they preserved? How easy are they to interpret?
Survey documents exist as part of the court records already in the eighteenth century. They sometimes have rudimentary maps, but they always have descriptions of boundaries. However, the descriptions are extremely difficult to interpret and convert into boundary maps.
Q. What research projects have gathered information on HISTORICAL boundaries for your area?
As far as I have been able to find out, there are none.
Q. What historical gazetteers are available for your area, in published or unpublished form? How do they indicate the location of the places listed? Do they cover variant forms of names?
Numerous local studies exist, originating in part from the nineteenth century. However, many of these studies are merely collections of place names (with variant spelling forms, though), and they do not indicate the location of the places. In the 1920s and early 1930s a geographical reference work in 11 volumes was published, and the series contains comprehensive listings of place names. There is a reference to the attached maps in the form of a municipality name. The place names are the formal variants, and no local variants (when different) are given. In the twentieth century, an extensive work has been done by the land surveyors themselves. They have collected hundreds of thousands of place names, largely from the local populace. The names, however, have been standardized to some extent in collaboration with The Research Institute for the Languages of Finland. The database does not have many variants of the names. A selected database consisting of 30,000 place names is available in Internet. Since Finland is a bilingual country, most administrative units have a name in two languages, one in Finnish and another one in Swedish. This is no problem, however, because most official publications give the names by using both languages.
Q. Are more specialised geographical thesaurii available?
The official directories of public officials, published annually since 1812. They list the civil, judicial, and ecclesiastical units, and they show the hierarchical relations between the different units. The smallest units are the civil municipalities and the church parishes. No such comprehensive published thesauri exist for the older times, but the National Archives of Finland have the corresponding information in their archival catalogues. They go back to the sixteenth century.
© Kari J. Pitkanen ( Helsinki, May 2000)