The Maiden of Finland ( fi, Suomi-neito, sv, Finlands mö) is the national personification of

Finland Finland ( fi, Suomi ; sv, Finland ), officially the Republic of Finland (; ), is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It shares land borders with Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of B ...

Personification

She is a barefoot young woman in her mid-twenties with blonde hair, blue eyes, wearing a blue and white national costume or a white dress. She was originally called Aura after the Aura River in

Turku Turku ( ; ; sv, Åbo, ) is a city and former capital on the southwest coast of Finland at the mouth of the Aura River, in the region of Finland Proper (''Varsinais-Suomi'') and the former Turku and Pori Province (''Turun ja Porin lääni''; ...

. As a symbol, the Finnish Maiden has been used since the 19th century when she was pictured as a woman wearing a turreted crown, and then developing as Finland gained a national consciousness and independence. She was depicted in poetry and fine arts. Zachris Topelius and Walter Runeberg were important in establishing the Finnish Maiden as a symbol. Like the Mother Svea of neighbouring Sweden, the Finnish maiden was, at first, a mature woman, but gradually became younger. Suomineito

Mapping issues

The Maiden of Finland can also refer to the

shape A shape or figure is a graphical representation of an object or its external boundary, outline, or external surface, as opposed to other properties such as color, texture, or material type. A plane shape or plane figure is constrained to lie ...

of Finland on a map. It's imagined as a female form which has one hand raised (and another, before the Moscow Armistice of 1944), a head, and a skirt. The metaphor is so commonly used that the northwestern area around Enontekiö is known as the "arm" (''Käsivarsi'') even in official contexts.Map of Käsivarsi
Forest authority

References

External links

473 - A Map of One Arm Waving: Suomi-Neito
Strange Maps bigthink.com
Finlandia by Jean Sibelius- thisisFINLAND
National personifications National symbols of Finland Fictional Finnish people {{Culture-stub