Norden newspaper: Finland's population

[June Pelo Senior Contributor Find all posts View Profile Close June Pelo]

According to Norden newspaper, the official population at the end of 2002 was 5,206,295. The paper reports that the number of foreigners has grown since 1980 and now stands at 103,682. The largest group are Russians, 24,277, followed by Estonians, 12,405 and then Swedish with 8,069. The number of people from EU-countries is 17.3% of all the foreigners living in Finland. The foremost are, in order, Sweden, Great Britain and Germany. Those who have Swedish as a mother tongue are the next largest language group after Finnish-speaking, with a total of 5.5% of the population.

Norden also reported that more than 430 foreigners entered Finland illegally in the first six months. Most aliens came from Jugoslavia, Iraq, Turkey and Bulgaria. Last year the total was 250.

[hromar Registered Find all posts View Profile Close hromar]

Hi
You can find the latest numbers of the population i Finland on
www.tilastokeskus.fi

HR

[Hasse Admin Administrator Find all posts View Profile Close Hasse]

Finland's population over the years

Some interesting statistics from http://www.tilastokeskus.fi/tk/tp/ta...ue_vaesto.html

Here you can see how the population has changed since early 1900 both in total numbers and for the major language groups

Popul.  Unit        1900    1950    1990    1997    1998    1999    2000    2001    2002    2003
                  31.12.
Total   1 000      2 656   4 030   4 998   5 147   5 160   5 171   5 181   5 195   5 206   5 220
Males   1 000      1 311   1 926   2 426   2 509   2 516   2 523   2 529   2 538   2 545   2 553
Females 1 000      1 345   2 104   2 572   2 638   2 644   2 648   2 652   2 657   2 661   2 667

Language
Finnish %          86,75   91,10   93,53   92,74   92,61   92,50   92,42   92,27   92,14   92,02
Swedish %          12,89    8,64    5,94    5,71    5,68    5,66    5,63    5,60    5,58    5,55
Lappish %           0,06    0,06    0,03    0,03    0,03    0,03    0,03    0,03    0,03    0,03
Russian %           0,29    0,12    0,08    0,40    0,45    0,50    0,54    0,60    0,64    0,67
Other   %           0,01    0,08    0,42    1,13    1,22    1,32    1,37    1,50    1,61    1,72