thisisFINLAND

Dance House Helsinki provides an inspiring haven for performers and audiences

Once just a dream, Finland’s new dance centre, Dance House Helsinki, has lived up to its promise since opening in February 2022. The long-awaited venue brings the dance community together, and also features contemporary circus and other performing arts.

Business & innovation Business

Filming in photogenic Finland

Finland offers a stunning stage for movies, documentaries and series, no matter what kind of setting is required – from cityscapes to wilderness, and from lakes to archipelagos. In recent movies, Finnish cities have even played the roles of Paris and Seattle.

Arts & culture Film

Kaurismäki in Karkkila: How Finland’s most famous film director and a writer started a small-town cinema

One year when the acclaimed film director Aki Kaurismäki made his annual return to Finland from his winter home in Portugal, he wound up creating a cinema in a disused industrial building.

179,584

Number of islands in Finland

Source: Eupedia

Life & society Social Services

Oodi Library acts as Helsinki’s urban living room

The Finnish government built the flagship library Oodi as a present to its citizens after the country celebrated 100 years of independence in 2017. It is a clear indication of how important reading and education are to Finns.

Life & society Quality of life

We asked people in Finland what makes them happy

In honour of the International Day of Happiness, which takes place every year on March 20, we visit Oodi, Helsinki’s grand central library, to talk with people about what makes them happy. In our video, they tell you in their own words.

Life & society Society

Citizens’ initiatives prove popular in Finland as an expression of democracy

More than a decade of experience shows how citizens’ initiatives, in which ordinary voters ask the legislature to create or alter a law, have become a popular expression of democracy in Finland – particularly for young people.

Business & innovation Webpick

Finnish researcher looks for climate answers in cold water

When you’re an academic researcher and assistant professor in water engineering at Finland’s Aalto University, as Eliisa Lotsari is, it helps to have a passion for cold water.

Life & society Winter

Icy resolve: Creating the world’s widest ice carousel on a Finnish lake

Janne Käpylehto’s newest project – making the largest ice carousel in the world – amounts to a masterclass in sisu, the untranslatable Finnish word that signifies courage and endurance. And we’ve got it on video.

200

Members in Finland's Parliament

things you should and shouldn’t know