does scandinavia belongs to the finnland?

Worldwide, casual and unofficial use of the term "Scandinavia" is a common reference to Denmark, Norway, and Sweden, but also includes Finland, Iceland, and the Faroe Islands.[14][15] While the former occupancy of Finland and shifting rule of Norway may have made this usage efficient, if not convenient – even after Norway and Finland resumed their national independence – this usage appears to be no more grounded in respect for the nations themselves than the term "Orient" is as a reference to various nations in the Eastern Hemisphere or "Indian" is as a reference for various tribal nations in the Americas. The larger region that some English-speaking nations refer to as "Scandinavia" is officially known by the actual countries concerned as Norden, or the Nordic Countries,[5] a political entity as well as cultural region where the ties between the countries are not merely historical and cultural, but based on official membership in the Nordic Council. Some American-English dictionaries, such as Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, do not include the names "Nordic Countries" or "Nordic Council". Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary instead defines Nordic as an adjective dated to 1898 with the meaning "of or relating to the Germanic peoples of northern Europe and especially of Scandinavia."[16]

The use of the name Scandinavia as a convenient general term for the three kingdoms of Denmark, Norway, and Sweden is also fairly recent; according to some historians, it was adopted and introduced in the 18th century, at a time when the ideas about a common heritage started to appear and develop into early literary and linguistic Scandinavism.[17] Before this time, the term Scandinavia was familiar mainly to classical scholars through Pliny the Elder's writings, and was used vaguely for Scania and the southern region of the peninsula.[17]

As a political term, "Scandinavia" was first used by students agitating for Pan-Scandinavianism in the 1830s.[17] The popular usage of the term in Sweden, Denmark and Norway as a unifying concept became established in the 19th century through poems such Hans Christian Andersen's "I am a Scandinavian" of 1839. After a visit to Sweden, Andersen became a supporter of early political Scandinavism and in a letter describing the poem to a friend, he wrote: "All at once I understood how related the Swedes, the Danes and the Norwegians are, and with this feeling I wrote the poem immediately after my return: 'We are one people, we are called Scandinavians!'".[18] The historic popular usage is also reflected in the name chosen for the shared, multi-national airline, Scandinavian Airlines System, a carrier originally owned jointly by the governments of the three countries, along with private investors.


[edit] Cultural and tourism promotional organizations
Various promotional agencies of the Nordic countries in the United States (such as The American-Scandinavian Foundation, established in 1910 by the Danish-American industrialist Niels Poulsen) serve to promote market and tourism interests in the region. Today, the five Nordic Heads of State act as the organization's patrons and according to the official statement by the organization, its mission is "to promote the Nordic region as a whole while increasing the visibility of Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden in New York City and the United States."[19] The official tourist boards of Scandinavia sometimes cooperate under one umbrella, such as the Scandinavian Tourist Board.[20] The cooperation was introduced for the Asian market in 1986, when the Swedish national tourist board joined the Danish national tourist board to coordinate international promotions of the two countries. Norway entered one year later. All five Nordic countries participate in the joint promotional efforts in the United States through the Scandinavian Tourist Boards in North America.[21]


[edit] Use of Nordic Countries vs. Scandinavia
Main article: Nordic countries
While the term Scandinavia is most commonly used for Denmark, Norway and Sweden, the term the Nordic countries is used unambiguously for Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, and Iceland, including their associated territories (Greenland, the Faroes, and Åland).[5] Scandinavia can thus be considered a subset of the Nordic countries.

In addition to mainland Denmark, Norway and Sweden, the Nordic countries consist of:

Finland (a sovereign republic, independent since 1917)
Iceland (a sovereign republic, independent since 1944)
and

Faroe Islands (an autonomous region of Denmark since 1948)
Greenland (a self-governing Danish territory since 1979)
Åland (an autonomous province of Finland since 1920)
Jan Mayen (an integrated geographical body of Norway)
Svalbard (under Norwegian sovereignty since 1920)
Estonia has applied for membership in the Nordic Council, referring to its cultural heritage and close linguistic links to Finland, although normally Estonia is regarded as one of the Baltic countries. All Baltic states have shared historical events with the Nordic countries, including Scandinavia, during the centuries.


[edit] Etymology

Satellite photo of the Scandinavian Peninsula, February 2003, with political boundaries added

Late Baltic Ice Lake around 10,300 years BP, with a channel near Mount Billingen through what is now central Sweden. (Political boundaries added).
Scandinavia and Scania (Skåne) are considered to have the same etymology. Both terms are thought to be derived from the Germanic root *Skaðin-awjō, which appears later in Old English as Scedenig and in Old Norse as Skáney.[22] The earliest identified source for the name Scandinavia is Pliny the Elder's Natural History, dated to the 1st century AD.

Various references to the region can also be found in Pytheas, Pomponius Mela, Tacitus, Ptolemy, Procopius and Jordanes. It is believed that the name used by Pliny may be of West Germanic origin, originally denoting Scania.[23] According to some scholars, the Germanic stem can be reconstructed as *Skaðan- meaning "danger" or "damage" (English scathing, German Schaden).[24] The second segment of the name has been reconstructed as *awjo, meaning "land on the water" or "island". The name Scandinavia would then mean "dangerous island", which is considered to be a reference to the treacherous sandbanks surrounding Scania.[24] Skanör in Scania, with its long Falsterbo reef, has the same stem (skan) combined with -ör, which means "sandbanks".

In the reconstructed Germanic root *Skaðin-awjō (the edh represented in Latin by t or d), the first segment is sometimes considered more uncertain than the second segment. The American Heritage Dictionary[25] derives the second segment from Proto-Indo-European *akwa-, "water", in the sense of "watery land". Gothic saiws, "lake" is one of the Germanic groups which include English sea and German See.[26] However, according to the Indo-European Dictionary (IEED), a research project of the Department of Comparative Indo-European Linguistics at Leiden University, the second segment may not have an Indo-European etymology. The IEED states that Uralic evidence has long been recognized for this segment, namely the Finnic saivo ("'transparent place in the sea'") and the Norwegian-Lappish saivvƒ ("'(holy) lake, idol'").[26] Some scholars have found a parallel between the Uralic evidence and the area's old mythology and belief systems, where the soul of mankind is believed to dwell in water until birth and return there after death.[26] IEED lists a Germanic reconstruction that indicates a similar connection to metaphysics, namely *saiwa-lō ("soul"), appearing as saiwala in Gothic and sēlein Old Frisian.


[edit] Pliny the Elder's descriptions
Pliny's descriptions of Scatinavia and surrounding areas are not always easy to decipher, even though his writing of geography was what he considered a "clarior fama" ("a clearer story"). Writing in the capacity of a Roman admiral, he introduces the northern region by declaring to his Roman readers that there are 23 islands "Romanis armis cognitae" ("known to Roman arms") in this area. According to Pliny, the most "clarissima" ("famous") of the region's islands is Scatinavia, of unknown size. There live the Hilleviones. The belief that Scandinavia was an island became widespread among classical authors during the first century and dominated descriptions of Scandinavia in classical texts during the centuries that followed.

Pliny begins his description of the route to Scatinavia by referring to the mountain of Saevo (mons Saevo ibi), the Codanus Bay (Codanus sinus) and the Cimbrian promontory.[27] The geographical features have been identified in various ways; by some scholars "Saevo" is thought to be the mountainous Norwegian coast at the entrance to Skagerrak and the Cimbrian peninsula is thought to be Skagen, the north tip of Jutland, Denmark. As described, Saevo and Scatinavia can also be the same place.

Pliny mentions Scandinavia one more time: in Book VIII he says that the animal called achlis (given in the accusative, achlin, which is not Latin), was born on the island of Scandinavia.[28] The animal grazes, has a big upper lip and some mythical attributes.

The name "Scandia", later used as a synonym for Scandinavia, also appears in Pliny's Naturalis Historia, but is used for a group of Northern European islands which he locates north of Britannia. "Scandia" thus does not appear to be denoting the island Scadinavia in Pliny's text. The idea that "Scadinavia" may have been one of the "Scandiae" islands was instead introduced by Ptolemy (c.90 – c.168 AD), a mathematician, geographer and astrologer of Roman Egypt. He used the name "Skandia" for the biggest, most easterly of the three "Scandiai" islands, which according to him were all located east of Jutland.[24]

Neither Pliny's nor Ptolemy's lists of Scandinavian tribes include the Suiones mentioned by Tacitus. Some early Swedish scholars of the Swedish Hyperborean school[29] and of the 19th-century romantic nationalism period proceeded to synthesize the different versions by inserting references to the Suiones, arguing that they must have been referred to in the original texts and obscured over time by spelling mistakes or various alterations.[30][31]


[edit] Germanic reconstruction
The Latin names in Pliny's text gave rise to different forms in medieval Germanic texts. In Jordanes' history of the Goths (AD 551) the form Scandza is used for their original home, separated by sea from the land of Europe (chapter 1, 4).[32] Where Jordanes meant to locate this quasi-legendary island is still a hotly debated issue, both in scholarly discussions and in the nationalistic discourse of various European countries.[33][34] The form Scadinavia as the original home of the Langobards appears in Paulus Diaconus' Historia Langobardorum[35]; in other versions of Historia Langobardorum appear the forms Scadan, Scandanan, Scadanan and Scatenauge.[36] Frankish sources used Sconaowe and Aethelweard, an Anglo-Saxon historian, used Scani.[37][38] In Beowulf, the forms Scedenige and Scedeland are used, while the Alfredian translation of Orosius and Wulfstan's travel accounts used the Old English Sconeg.[38]

The first segment in "Scandinavia" is also sometimes attributed to Norse mythology, namely the Scandinavian giantess Skaði (Skade).


[edit] Sami etymology

Hunting ski goddess, or Sami woman hunting on ski, from Olaus Magnus, 1555.The earliest Sami yoik texts written down refer to the world as Skadesi-suolo (north-Sami) and Skađsuâl (east-Sami), meaning "Skade's island" (Svennung 1963). Svennung considers the Sami name to have been introduced as a loan word from the North Germanic languages;[39] "Skade" is the giant stepmother of Freyr and Freyja in Norse mythology. It has been suggested that Skade to some extent is modeled on a Sami woman. The name for Skade's father Thjazi is known in Sami as Čáhci, "the waterman", and her son with Odin, Saeming, can be interpreted as a descendent of Saam the Sami population (Mundel 2000)[40], (Steinsland 1991).[41] Older joik texts give evidence of the old Sami belief about living on an island and state that the wolf is known as suolu gievra, meaning "the strong one on the island". The Sami place name Sulliidčielbma means "the island's threshold" and Suoločielgi means "the island's back".

In recent substrate studies, Sami linguists have examined the initial cluster sk- in words used in Sami and concluded that sk- is a phonotactic structure of non-native origin.[42]


[edit] Other etymologies
Scadin- can be segmented various ways to obtain various Indo-European meanings: scand- or scad-in-, scan- or sca-din, scandin or scadin-. These segmentations have resulted in a number of possible etymologies, such as "climbing island" (*scand-), "island of the Scythian people", "island of the woodland of *sca-".[citation needed]

Another possibility is that all or part of the segments of the name came from the indigenous Mesolithic people inhabiting the region.[43] Today Scandinavia is a peninsula, but between approximately 10,300 BP and 9,500 BP, the southern part of Scandinavia was an island separated from the northern peninsula, with water exiting the Baltic Sea through the area where Stockholm is now located.[44]

Some Basque scholars have presented the idea that the segment sk that appears in *Ska∂inaujàin is connected to the name for the Euzko peoples, akin to Basques, that populated Paleolithic Europe. According to some of these intellectuals, the Scandinavians share some genetic markers with the Basque people.[43]

The name of the Scandinavian mountain range, Skanderna in Swedish, was artificially derived from Skandinavien in the 19th century, in analogy with Alperna for the Alps. The commonly used names are bergen or fjällen; both names meaning "the mountains".


[edit] Geography

Scandinavia, Fennoscandia, and the Kola Peninsula.See also: Geography of Denmark, Geography of Norway, and Geography of Sweden
The geography of Scandinavia is extremely varied. Notable are the Norwegian fjords, the Scandinavian Mountains, the flat, low areas in Denmark, and the archipelagos of Sweden and Norway. When Finland is included, the moraines (ice age remnants) and lake areas are also notable.

The climate varies from north to south and from west to east; a marine west coast climate (Cfb) typical of western Europe dominates in Denmark, southernmost part of Sweden and along the west coast of Norway reaching north to 65°N, with orographic lift giving more than 2000 mm/year precipitation (