List of municipalities of Finland in which Finnish is not the sole official language

There are 53 municipalities of Finland in which Finnish is not the sole official language. In Finland, as of December 31, 2013, 89.3% of the population speak Finnish, 5.3% Swedish and 0.04% Sami languages., at the Statistics Finland site; accessed June 18, 2014 Both Finnish and Swedish are official languages of Finland.Heikki E. S. Mattila, Comparative Legal Linguistics, p. 55. Ashgate Publishing, Ltd., 2006, Officially, a municipality is bilingual if the minority language group consists of at least 8% of the population, or at least 3,000 speakers. "Ruotsin- ja kaksikieliset kunnat" ("Swedish and Bilingual Municipalities"), at the Association of Finnish Local and Regional Authorities site; accessed June 18, 2014 A previously bilingual municipality remains so if the linguistic minority proportion drops below 8%, up to 6%. If it drops below 6%, it is possible for the municipality to remain bilingual by government decree, on the recommendation of the municipal council, for a further ten years.Olli-Pekka Salo, "Finland's Official Bilingualism – A Bed of Roses or of Procrustes?", in Jan Blommaert, Sirpa Leppänen, Päivi Pahta (eds.), Dangerous Multilingualism: Northern Perspectives on Order, Purity and Normality, p. 28–9. Palgrave Macmillan, 2012, Municipalities that make use of the 3,000-speaker rule include the national capital Helsinki and the cultural center of Swedish Finns, Turku. On the Åland archipelago, where Finnish is almost absent from daily life, the language law does not apply. On the mainland, the highest proportion of Swedish-speakers is found on the western coast, in Ostrobothnia.Claus D. Pusch, "Old Minorities within a Language Space", in Peter Auer, Jürgen Erich Schmidt (eds.), Language and Space: An International Handbook of Linguistic Variation, Volume 1, p. 385–6. Walter de Gruyter, 2010,

Of the 310 Finnish municipalities, 16 are monolingually Swedish. 33 municipalities are bilingually Finnish and Swedish; of these, 15 have a Swedish-speaking majority and 18 a Finnish-speaking one. Four municipalities, all located in Lapland, have a Finnish-speaking majority and a Sami-speaking minority: Enontekiö, Inari, Sodankylä and Utsjoki.Kenneth Douglas McRae, Mika Helander, Sari Luoma, Conflict and Compromise in Multilingual Societies: Finland, Volume 3, p. 231. Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 1999, Initially, only Swedish was accorded official bilingualism, through a language act of 1922; similar provisions were extended to Sami through a 1991 law. The 1922 law was replaced by new but largely similar legislation in 2003.

Municipalities

Name in majority language Name in minority language(s) Language(s) Percentage of populationspeaking official languageother than Finnish31 December 2025 Region Monolingually Swedish 72.6 Monolingually Swedish 85.7 Finnish majority, Sami minority 10.2 Lapland Esbo Finnish majority, Swedish minority 6.2 Uusimaa Monolingually Swedish 88.7 Monolingually Swedish 79.7 Monolingually Swedish 81.6 Monolingually Swedish 89.7 Hangö Finnish majority, Swedish minority 41.2 Uusimaa Helsingfors Finnish majority, Swedish minority 5.4 Uusimaa Finnish majority, Sami minority 7.1 Lapland Inkoo Finnish majority, Finnish minority 43.9 Uusimaa Pietarsaari Swedish majority, Finnish minority 53.1 Ostrobothnia Monolingually Swedish 87.2 Kaskö Finnish majority, Swedish minority 27.0 Ostrobothnia Grankulla Finnish majority, Swedish minority 30.2 Uusimaa Kemiönsaari Swedish majority, Finnish minority 65.3 Southwest Finland Kyrkslätt Finnish majority, Swedish minority 14.4 Uusimaa Karleby Finnish majority, Swedish minority 11.7 Central Ostrobothnia Mustasaari Swedish majority, Finnish minority 67.9 Ostrobothnia Swedish majority, Finnish minority 83.0 Ostrobothnia Kristiinankaupunki Swedish majority, Finnish minority 51.9 Ostrobothnia Kruunupyy Swedish majority, Finnish minority 75.4 Ostrobothnia Monolingually Swedish 90.3 Monolingually Swedish 88.4 Lappträsk Finnish majority, Swedish minority 28.6 Uusimaa Luoto Swedish majority, Finnish minority 91.6 Ostrobothnia Monolingually Swedish 90.6 Lojo Finnish majority, Swedish minority 3.4 Uusimaa Lovisa Finnish majority, Swedish minority 38.7 Uusimaa Monolingually Swedish 85.2 Maalahti Swedish majority, Finnish minority 84.4 Ostrobothnia Maarianhamina Monolingually Swedish 85.7 Mörskom Finnish majority, Swedish minority 9.2 Uusimaa Uusikaarlepyy Swedish majority, Finnish minority 83.7 Ostrobothnia Närpiö Swedish majority, Finnish minority 72.6 Ostrobothnia Parainen Swedish majority, Finnish minority 53.5 Southwest Finland Pedersören kunta Swedish majority, Finnish minority 88.4 Ostrobothnia Borgå Finnish majority, Swedish minority 27.2 Uusimaa Pyttis Finnish majority, Swedish minority 6.5 Kymenlaakso Raasepori Swedish majority, Finnish minority 63.3 Uusimaa Monolingually Swedish 88.8 Sibbo Finnish majority, Swedish minority 26.8 Uusimaa Sjundeå Finnish majority, Swedish minority 26.0 Uusimaa Finnish majority, Sami minority 1.6 Lapland Monolingually Swedish 96.9 Monolingually Swedish 87.9 Åbo Finnish majority, Swedish minority 5.4 Southwest Finland Finnish majority, Sami minority 41.4 Lapland Vasa Finnish majority, Swedish minority 22.8 Ostrobothnia Vanda Finnish majority, Swedish minority 2.1 Uusimaa Monolingually Swedish 84.9 Vöyri Swedish majority, Finnish minority 81.3 Ostrobothnia

See also

Languages of Finland Swedish-speaking Finns List of Finnish municipalities Names of places in Finland in Finnish and in Swedish

References