Finland, officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country. It borders Sweden on the west, Russia on the east, and Norway on the north, while Estonia lies to its south across the Gulf of Finland. The capital city is Helsinki.

Around 5.3 million people reside in Finland, with the majority concentrated in the southern part of the country. It is the eighth largest country in Europe in terms of area and the most sparsely populated country in the EU. The native language for most of the population is Finnish, which is one of only four official EU languages not of Indo-Europian origin. The other official language of Finland, Swedish, is the native language of 5.5 percent of the population. Finland is a democratic, parliamentary republic with a mostly Helsinki-based central government and local governments in 348 municipalities. A total of a million residents live in capital city area.