Åland

Åland is an autonomous, demilitarized region of Finland made up of islands at the mouth of the Gulf of Bothnia in the Baltic Sea. Mariehamn is the capital and Swedish is the only official language, and the main island, Fasta Åland, lies 38 km (24 mi) of open sea from the coast of Sweden.

People of the Comb Ceramic culture settled the islands around 7,000 years ago, as the land rose from the sea after the last Ice Age. They lived from seal hunting, birding and fishing, and more than 380 Viking Age burial sites have been recorded. Work on Kastelholm Castle began in the 1380s, the Danish naval officer Søren Norby seized it in 1505, and the castle hosted trials for witchcraft in 1665 and 1668. In 1809 Sweden ceded Åland with Finland to the Russian Empire under the Treaty of Fredrikshamn.

Russia began building the fortress of Bomarsund in 1832, and its ruins date from the Crimean War of 1854; the Treaty of Paris of 1856 then demilitarized the islands. After 1917 most Ålanders wanted to join Sweden, and a petition of 1919 backed that goal. Finland refused, and in 1921 the League of Nations ruled that the islands stay Finnish but keep their autonomy, granted under an act of 1920 and renewed in 1951 and 1991; the diplomat Nitobe Inazō helped shape the ruling.

Åland has its own parliament, the Lagting, its own flag, and its own postal service since 1984, and its residents are exempt from Finnish military service. Voters approved joining the European Union in a separate referendum on 20 November 1994, and a special protocol limits land ownership to people with home region rights. Because the islands fall outside the EU tax area, ferries between Finland and Sweden can sell duty-free goods by stopping at Mariehamn.