I love it when you are supposed to say Rovaniemi, you just always mutter "Rovimaami.." hoping no one would notice :D

When Rovaniemi becomes Roviomam, Roviohuhmhmh, Rovamami, Roviomami (twice), Rovomami and finally just "Romi!"

In Finland giving personal space is not considered giving permit to be antisocial. It's more like antisocial is intruding the stranger's personal space without a sensible reason. So it's more like the proper social behaviour is to respect the stranger by giving him/her space. And in cities the space is as large as we saw in the picture. And when the bus arrives, the space is deminishing. When the queue is ready, then the rule is that there's a near touch distance to others. Any movement you make on your spot, and there is contact. But it's the situation to be expected in a queue, so nobody is bothered by it. Only the length of the queue is on people's minds then :)

Factoids and corrections: -The switch to euro happened almost 17 years ago here in Finland. In 2001 -Helsinki is not cheaper than other cities. It is actually more expensive if you factor in all the expenses of living and mass transit fees. -Up until the 1800:s the capital of the province of Finland was Turku, which is more like what you would expect for a city, and Helsinki was literally a small fishing town in the middle of a swamp(although they had fort Suomenlinna close by). When the Empire of Russia took over, they relocated the capital because Turku was too close to Sweden. -Turku was chosen as the European Culture Capital for the year 2011, and has many excavation sites and locations that you can visit if you are into late Middle Age history. -Turku archipelago is the largest archipelago in the world if measured by the number of islands. -The pictures of people on the bus stops are rare examples. We usually keep our distance to others, but not that much. -Finnish people do not talk much, unless there is something meaningful to say. Small talk is not a thing in Finland. Overall a nice little video :) I hope you visit Finland again in the future!

Mostly well done with the research, but you keep referring to Swedish-speaking Finns as Swedes which is very wrong. They're just as much Finnish as Finnish-speaking Finns. Åland Islands don't consist "mostly of Swedes", Swedes only make up ~5% of the population there, even though nearly 90% of the population of Åland speaks Swedish as their mother tongue. Also no, the flights from Helsinki don't go to the Swedish Lapland. That would make no sense. Naturally they go to the Finnish part of Lapland :D

The beaches are used - but in the summer time :) But when the sea is frozen, people can ski there, and go ice fishing: drill a hole, and lure the fish.

Could you make more of these? I like the idea of learning loads about a country in one video.

Finland- most metal bands per capita.

>pronouncing Rovaniemi as roviamani 🤔

Torille?

I travelled to Helsinki for 5 days recently, and it was so convenient to have Swedish translations all over the city, since Swedish is so close to Danish. Also, in my experience, Finnish people (at least in Helsinki) does not seem so afraid of talking to other people as in the photos showcased. The Finnish people was incredibly helpful and polite, but I did not notice that they would talk less than what I'm used to. Helsinki was a fantastic city, and I would very much like to go there again.

If you go by land area, the largest city in Finland would actually be Inari, which clocks in at about twice the size of Rovaniemi

I love your enthusiasm. I’ve been fascinated by The Winter War since childhood. Inspiring story.

that buss thingy is just a general Nordic thing. We do that in Norway and Sweden too. Especially in the morning.

Ussr: haha look Finland looks like an easy target Finland: our songs stop ur mines Ussr: I SURRENDER

I love all of your 12 pronunciations of Rovaniemi ;)

As someone from Åland/Aland Island, him talking about it makes me happy.

You made it! 😛 Ok, you had good effort on the pronounciation, but I understand that it’s impossible for a Brit. By the way, we were actually the first country to switch to Euro, so it wasn’t just 10 years ago. If you ask me ”Is Finland more Swedish or Russian, based on the fact that it’s been part of both?” I’d say definitely more Swedish. Places and signs have names in Finnish and Swedish, but you won’t find any Russian here. Also other than language, (swedish is obligatory in school) Finland is a nordic country and a western country, as well as an EU country, as Russia doesn’t qualify for any of these. But Sweden on the other hand does. I’m a Finnish teenager and I know the basics of Swedish, and therefore also Norwegian and Danish. Me and my friends use a bit of Swedish just for fun, and we also sometimes make fun of Swedes and even Finnish-Swedes. The center of Helsinki is either the main railway station or Esplanadi (the two streets with a park between them). Although some people consider it to be an other place, e.g Aleksanterinkatu. Three of the four biggest Finnish cities are in the Helsinki metropolitan area, in Finnish we call it the capital city area. It consists of Helsinki, Espoo, Vantaa, Kauniainen (which is completely surrounded by Espoo). The population of the area is over a million. The ferris wheel is shit. Thanks for making a great video! And hopefully I’m a good representation of the Finns’ English speaking skills! Btw, fun fact: Finland has more tanks than the rest of the nordics + Ireland combined. We’re the shield for all the other nordic countries (before russia).

As a Finn, it's a bit funny that those "centrals" you mark over London and Rome are actually areas the same size or bigger than Helsinki. And by no means different. Remember that Helsinki is a dense city of only around 0.6M people... how does London or Rome relate to that? Big, aye? In practice, the central area of Helsinki is pretty much whatever you find around the railway station in a 2-5 km radius. That's the city center. It's not a metropolitan, just a city.

Oh toycat and Finland it never gets old

This new Mythology with Toycat series is great!

"any international flight will end you up in helsinki..." *wrong* Helsinki doesn't have a commercial airport, however Vantaa right next to it does and it houses the Helsinki-Vantaa airport

Wow that Rovaniemi pronunciation was so bad (like actually)

The origin of Finnish personal space has actually to do with old finnish paganism where one is meant to keep their beliefs to themselves and worship various spirits and entities in the nature. Since a lot of the pagan traditions survived to the modern lutheran church, the tradition of keeping to oneself is still being practiced. This is why it is concidered extremely bad manners to talk about religion for instance in the open public, or butt into someone elses space, since you have no idea if he's going through some ritual to honour the spirit of Ukko, or Tapio, the king of the forests in his head. This is also why you won't find any synthethic holy sites before christiandom in Finland. All the holy sites of Finnish paganism were rocks, forests and lakes as well as ones own sauna, afterall, why would a God of Thunder care about some structure made by mortal men? However, I could go on a huge rant on the importance of a Sauna to the finnish culture, so better stop short.

Make a video about the "Torilla tavataan "phenomenon." The world needs to know.

right on time! I'm applying for an Erasmus spot in Finland and now I can use lots of interesting facts in my motivation letter!

Just to mention, there are over 10different swedish dialekts in finland, moustly you can find all of them in Österbotten. If you ever are planning to go to the Swedish part of Finland, there is a small place called "Kimo" and you could visit the museum "Kimo Bruk", it hadd a really important part with Sweden back in the days. Tänkt bara säg he, ha in bra dag! "Just wanted to say that, have a good day!

Cool that you're making a video about my country! Greetings from Vantaa, Finland!

I admire your intellihgence and the way you explain matters very well & clearly.

I love the Finnish landscape. It has that beautiful mixture / balance of lakes and land.

My granfather fought in the winter war for finland, he has told my family a lot of stories about it. Sadly i dont remember much since i was pretty young, im only a little finnish (swedish and finnish) but i still appreciate the video :)

thank you for a great video, cheers :)

Hi Andrew, great video as always, but did you realise we are nearly at 50K subs. Could you livestream the countdown

This was very educational, informative and entertaining. Thank you sir.

Omigosh! This was an awesome video! Paljon kiitoksia! 💖

I think biggest city in Finland used to be Pudasjärvi, but they made some changes in 2006 and Rovaniemi is now the biggest city in Finland and Europe. Also I think it is bit wrong to say that "Åland island consists of Swedish people", they speak Swedish but they are Finnish nationals, they don't have Swedish citizenship. Only small fraction of people living there are Swedish nationals.

I love your enthusiasm💜

Wasn't expecting this... I'm glad that I just made some coffee and bought some chocolate from Fazer

Thanks for teaching about my homecountry.

Fun fact there are towns named: HolyCoast, HolyLand and NewTown just inside 30km zone in south-west part of Finland. Oh also there is small village called "Helsinki" in that area. (Less than 100 people live there) I think its pretty funny how this small zone has such funny names for places. And yes I did directly translate these names as they dont have official names in english.

Quite impressive work! I bet not many Finns would have managed to make an equally knowledgeable video.

I've been to the beach in Helsinki during August and it was quite warm and busy!

I've been swimming at one of the beaches in Helsinki in June!

One interesting thing to mention is that Finland is presumably the only country in Eurozone to not use 1 and 2 cent coins.

Nice interesting video like. Can you also make videos like this about the Baltic and Balkan countries.

You should watch a finnish movie called Tuntematon Sotilas translated to Unknown soldier its in finnish but maybe you can find it with english text

Nice finally real info about Finland. I suggest you watch the newest unknown soldier (which is about continuation war) and is highly respected here. Not sure though if it already has English subs (possibly). It is really well made and it can be quite emotional. Interesting to know you know so much without being Finnish :O. Respect

From an Italian: I definitely confirm you that was the right choice for Rome centre. In addition, great video

I love ur channel

I love the biggest cities by land area because it's usually not at all what you expect. For example, if guessing the biggest land city in FL, you'd likely guess Miami, Tampa, Orlando, but it's actually Jacksonville (also the biggest in the USA, fun fact)

That meme at the end was fantastic.

The bus stops in Finland must be amazing like I bet they don't have random people smoking cigarettes who just sit down next to you and get the smoke in your face or people who just start random conversations with you waiting at the bus stop all the time.

You said every name wrong except Åland and Helsinki.

I am finnish, so i accept calling this biased, but... Keeping in mind wwii and the cold war, the location of Finland was very important for both sides, Would have made a huge NATO influence on the north, right on their border, and for soviets it would have been an amazing increase in control of baltics and they could have easily spread communism to northern countries overall. It happened to baltics, they fell under communists and now they're in NATO. Also, two wars from one of the largest military in the world, and never got wide support from any country except Sweden, and we're still fucking independent? A country of 5 million people? With a casual army and shitty influence & industry compared to southern Europe? Makes no sense.

My great grandmother's apartment on Mannerheimintie (like the most known street in Helsinki) was 25~ square meters, and it sold for 520 000 euros, so I wouldn't say Helsinki is a cheap place to live in

Do a video like this, but about sweden!

One reason why Aland (Åland) Islands were given to Finland by the League of nations, is that it had been part of Finland more than a century, during the Russian rule. So I think the international community just didn't want to change the situation with a paper. Why they didn't let the locals vote what they want to choose? Well, at those times it wasn't yet very much in 'fashion' in politics. Maybe the greater powers were afraid their minorities would like to 'skip country', if the Aland people would vote themselves out of Finland, showing bad example of too much independence.

You should check out some of the strangeness on the Dutch Belgian border, especially around the town Baarle-Nassau

You don't actually have to go all the way North to see the Northern lights. I managed to see them in South Karelia. Once. After living there eighteen years. Think they're definitely more common further North. Point stands, you can see them in the South too sometimes!

Our family have a house in Finland East of Umeå (a city in northern Sweden in the coast of the baltic sea)

Can you do a video about Switzerland? It's such a unique country and the only one of it's kind in the world.

Rovaniemi is a municipality as well as a city. I think you mistook one for the other. I'm not sure which is the largest city, but wasn't Kiruna (Sweden) the largest city by area in the EU at some point?

I love Finland. Visit Savonlinna!

18:05 social distancing before it was cool.

As good as Geography Now's video on Finland!

Another important fact: It is the country in Europa with the most forest cover as % of area. (I think it was over 77%)

I'd really like a video like this on Sweden as well...

Rovaniemi is the biggest city becaus the "city" area and the "countryside" merged because both were just "Rovaniemi", so it was just easier. "The city and the surrounding Rovaniemen maalaiskunta (Rural municipality of Rovaniemi) were consolidated into a single entity on 1 January 2006. "

Finnish also created Molotov's cocktail, to fight against the Russian army's tanks. They gave the name Molotov's cocktail, because of Russian foreign minister Vjatšeslav Molotov said that Russian air force only dropped food supplies to Finland. (They were called Molotov's bread baskets)

I'm really nordic, i live in sweden whit finish /danish grandparents. My grandma spoke finlandssvenska and to me it's a really cute dialekt,

fun fact.. Rovaniemi, Lappland is the largest city in Europe by area, a couple of years ago. That would have been the Swedish town of Kiruna, Lappland :P

Do a video on Hungary.

have you heard about the sami languages?

my mums best friend is a finn when I was a kid and he was drunk he always said: "Your father knows nothing, but my father does because he was in the finish winter war!!!"

Do one about Portugal please

The nordic countries aren't a frozen hellscape all year around. We can use the beaches during summertime. ;)

Suomi Mainittu. Torilla Tavataan!

Finnish Lapland gets a LOT of tourists these days, you see groups of Asians taking selfies with cute reindeers. Direct scheduled flights from Gatwick too ;)

If you really want to see what Finland is all about, don't go to Helsinki or other big cities, visit smaller cities and villages (east and north is good places to go) You don't find lot of tourism in there but it is beautiful.

Do a video on The Great Northern War.

Fun fact: Kiruna (Sweden) used to be the biggest city in the world by area with a 5000 sq/km radius before a boundary reform shrunk it down and stripped it off it's status as a city.

Helsinki isn't always been our capital, Turku was before it burned down

the northern part of Finland is called lappland

You can take off the "(Don't)" part of the title - this is a pretty good summary.

aina on hauska katsoo ku muunkieliset tubettajat puhuu suomesta :D jep oon suomest xD yrittäpääkä kääntää :DD

Nice 👍🏻

Heh, you ain't wrong about the language being different. Honestly if you want to explain it you can extend the description you use in the video a bit: "Swedish and Norwegian, kinda similar, Swedish and German, you can still see similarities, Swedish and English, a little bit less, Swedish and French, you're really getting out there, Swedish and Finnish, it's about the same as Swedish and Japanese."

Just a little clearing up, not that you said anything wrong but maybe you could've been a bit more clear: Before switching to Euro, Finland didn't have a kronor currency. Since you said "Norway kept their kronor, Sweden kept their kronor etc. but Finland changed to Euro, so it's a bit of an exception", it could sound like you're implying that Finland used to have kronor, but it didn't. Before Euro, Finland used a currency called Markka, which had nothing to do with kronor. So, even before Euro, Finland was a bit of an exception. :P

Talk about sweden. Nice video tho! Nice to shine light upon us Nordic/Scandinavian people. Sweden sent very many vulountery troops and tons of equipment to finland in the winter war. Wait the city of Kiruna in Sweden call them self the world in land area biggest city so that's weird

My English teacher come from Finland but live in Sweden.

2001 (first in 1999) is when we got euros (joined EU in 1995 I believe)

Vaikka Suomi sijoittuu kansainvälisissä vertailuissa kärkijoukkoon, kun tarkastellaan liiketoimintaympäristöä ja houkuttelevuutta sijoituskohteena, Suomeen tehdään kuitenkin unionin keskiarvoa vähemmän sijoituksia talouden kokoon suhteutettuna.

yes

Bestiality is legal in FInland... Well if the animal doesnt get hurt...

16:19 oulu=ulu :D

You know how the water freezes when it's cold enough? That's why the beach is frozen, it's not like that most of the year.

A few corrections: The beaches are used in summer time for sure. Not from Helsinki but generally at least private beaches are used for ice swimming during winter. Lapland (Lappi in Finnish) is a providence, not just "for some reason equated to being in Finland." You mentioned that you'll be fine speaking English in big cities, where in reality everyone under 50 will be able to speak English so that sounded a bit rough. People in Ahvenanmaa (Åland) are not Swedes but Swedish speaking Finns. Speaking Swedish does not make them any less Finns than Finnish speakers. My advice for people planning on visiting Finland would be to leave Helsinki as soon as you can. It's an ok city but if you actually want to visit real Finland you should try something else. Most people either go to Helsinki or Lapland, but Finland has so much more to offer. Even if you go to Lapland, rent a car and drive it there. You'll get to see much more of the country that way.

18:05 thats looking really familiar right now...

Did you get this information from cgp grey

My favorite part is always the 'Fun Facts' 😂