The Maiden of Finland is the national personification

National personification

A national personification is an anthropomorphization of a nation or its people; it can appear in both editorial cartoons and propaganda.Some early personifications in the Western world tended to be national manifestations of the majestic wisdom and war goddess Minerva/Athena, and often took the...

 of Finland

Finland

Finland , officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country situated in the Fennoscandian region of Northern Europe. It is bordered by Sweden in the west, Norway in the north and Russia in the east, while Estonia lies to its south across the Gulf of Finland.Around 5.4 million people reside...

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Personification

She is a barefoot young woman in her mid-twenties with often braided blonde hair, blue eyes, wearing a blue and white national costume

National costume

Folk costume expresses an identity through costume which usually to a geographic area or a period of time in history, but can also indicate social, marital and/or religious status...

 or a white dress. She was originally called Aura after the Aura River

Aura River

The Aura River is a river in south-western Finland. Its sources are in the town of Oripää, and it flows through Pöytyä, Aura and Lieto before discharging into the Archipelago Sea in the middle of the city of Turku. The total length of the river is about , and it contains eleven rapids, the biggest...

 in Turku

Turku

Turku is a city situated on the southwest coast of Finland at the mouth of the Aura River. It is located in the region of Finland Proper. It is believed that Turku came into existence during the end of the 13th century which makes it the oldest city in Finland...

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• As a symbol, the Finnish Maiden has been used since the 19th century when she was pictured as a woman wearing a turreted crown
  Mural crown
  -Usage in ancient times:In Hellenistic culture, a mural crown identified the goddess Tyche, the embodiment of the fortune of a city, familiar to Romans as Fortuna...
  
  , and then developing as Finland gained a national consciousness and independence.

Mapping issues

The Maiden of Finland can also refer to the shape of Finland on the map. With a little imagination it looks like a female form which has one hand raised (and another before the Moscow Armistice of 1944

Moscow Armistice

The Moscow Armistice was signed between Finland on one side and the Soviet Union and United Kingdom on the other side on September 19, 1944, ending the Continuation War...

), a head, and a skirt. The metaphor is so commonly used that the northwestern area around Enontekiö

Enontekiö

Enontekiö is a municipality in the Finnish part of Lapland with approx. inhabitants. It is situated in the outermost northwest of the country and occupies a large and very sparsely populated area of about between the Swedish and Norwegian border...

is known as the Arm (Käsivarsi) even in official contexts.

External links

Related English language explanations

• Finlandia by Jean Sibelius- thisisFINLAND