Finnish Lakeland

Finnish Lakeland or Finnish lake district ( _fi. Järvi-Suomi, "Lake Finland") is the largest of the four landscape regions into which the geography of Finland is divided.

The hilly, forest-covered landscape of the lake plateau is dominated by drumlins and by long sinuous eskers. Both are glacial remnants after the continental glaciers that scoured and gouged the country's surface receded about 10,000 years ago.

Demarcation

The district occupies most of the central and East Finland and is bounded to the south by the Salpausselkä Ridges. These ridges are terminal moraines, which trap networks of thousands of lakes separated by hilly forested countryside.

The lake district turns into the Coastal Finland district to the West and Northwest, and is bounded by the Upland Finland to the North.

The lake landscape continues to the East and extends into Russia (Karelian Isthmus and Republic of Karelia). As a consequence, there is no natural border between the two countries.

Lakes

Lakes occupy about 25% of the Lakeland. The remaining territory is mainly forests and has low population density.

Because no set definition of what constitutes a lake and no procedures for counting the number of lakes exist, it has been impossible to ascertain exactly how many lakes the region has. There are, however, at least 55,000 lakes that are at least 200 m wide.

If lake is defined to be a body of standing water larger than 500 m², then there are 187,888 lakes in Finland. On average, there are 40 lakes per 100 km² in the district. The lake number density is largest north of the Lake Inari, up to 1000 per 100 km², so that the area is sometimes called "Lampi-Suomi" (Pond Finland, Finnish pond district) [ [http://www.environment.fi/default.asp?node=12335&lan=en Lakes in Finland] ]

The largest is Lake Saimaa, which, with a surface area of more than 4400 km², is the fifth largest lake in Europe. The deepest lake has a depth of only 100 m; the depth of the average lake is 7 m. Because they are shallow, these many lakes contain only slightly more water than Finland's annual rainfall.

The Saimaa Canal connects the Lake Saimaa to the Vyborg Bay of the Gulf of Finland, Baltic Sea. Another connection to the Baltic Sea is the Vuoksi River, which flows from Saimaa to Lake Ladoga, from where the water subsequently flows through Neva River into the Gulf of Finland, bypassing the Salpausselkä.

Lake Päijänne is the second largest lake in Finland, which drains into the Gulf of Finland via the Kymi River.

References

* [http://www.ymparisto.fi/default.asp?contentid=165718&lan=FI Classification of major landscapes of Finland] fi icon