Language rights in Finland
Finland is Northern European Scandinavian state which became independent from Russia in 1917. Finland is officially bilingual with Finnish and Swedish being national languages at state level. According to Finnish legislation, a municipality is bilingual if both official languages are spoken by either at least 8 percent of the population or at least 3,000 people. A municipality could lose its bilingual status if the proportion of speakers of any national language falls below 6 percent, but even in such case it can apply to retain bilingual status. Bilingual municipalities have a first and a second language, depending on which language community represents a larger proportion. A region is considered bilingual if at least one of its municipalities is bilingual.
In three local administrative units of Language rights in Finland (Utsjoki, Inari, Enontekiö) and in part of another one (Sodankylä), various dialects of the Sami language are considered official languages, regardless of the number or proportion of the speakers.
Åland Islands, enjoying an extensive autonomy since 1922, is the only region of Language rights in Finland that cannot be bilingual. The autonomy aims the preservation of the Swedish national character of the islands, therefore Swedish is the only official language there. The archipelago has its own government (Landskapsregering), head of government (Lantråd), parliament (Lagting), party system and other institutions. Since 2010, the central state is represented by the Åland State Office (Statens ämbetsverk på Åland), which is subordinate to the Finnish Ministry of Finance, and the Governor of Åland (Ålands landshövding), appointed by the Finnish President with the prior approval of the Lagting. To ensure the protection of the Swedish national character of the archipelago, it was exempted from the obligation of applying certain EU rules that would have affected core elements of its autonomy, notably in the areas of property ownership and taxation.