Åland

Åland

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Åland (ALA)

The Åland Islands (Swedish: Åland, Finnish: Ahvenanmaa) form an archipelago in the Baltic Sea. It is situated at the entrance to the Gulf of Bothnia and forms an autonomous, demilitarized, monolingually Swedish-speaking administrative province, region and historical province of Finland. It is the smallest province of Finland, comprising 0.5% of Finland's population and 0.49% of land area.

The islands consist of the main island Fasta Åland (where 90% of the population resides)[1] and an archipelago to the east that consists of over 6,500 skerries and islands. Fasta Åland is separated from the coast of Sweden by forty kilometres (twenty-five miles) of open water to the west. In the east, the Åland archipelago is virtually contiguous with the Finnish Archipelago Sea.

Åland participates in the Island Games.