Tanya & Hua Loo Loo in Switzerland

Finland is ranked sixth in the latest United Nations survey of quality of life. And if the implementation of equal rights for women is included as a factor that enhances the state of a nation, Finland rises one step up to fifth position in the world. The U.N. bases its assessment of quality of life on four criteria: general health, standard of education, life expectancy and incomes. The survey was published on September 9. Top of the list is Canada, followed by France, the  USA, and Iceland Sweden is ranked tenth, Denmark eighteenth. When the position of women in society is taken into account the order changes. Canada remains first but Norway rises to second place, followed by Sweden Iceland  and Finland 

 Public sector honesty  

Surely one vital characteristic of a sane and sensible society is general honesty among its public officials, dishonesty in the form of corruption being very rare, the exception rather than the rule. As if to illustrate this notion of common sense and ethicality, Finland  was, for the third year in succession, rated the least corrupt country in the world by Transparency International (TI) in its annual survey published on August 28, 2002. TI is a Berlin-based NGO founded in 1993 to combat corruption in the public sector by exposing it and writing about it.

In its Corruption Perceptions Index for 2002, TI ranked 102 countries worldwide, the highest number ever. Finland came top, with 9.7 points out of a clean score of 10. Next were by Denmark and New Zealand who shared second place with 9.5 points. Iceland was fourth while Sweden and Singapore tied for fifth position. Thus four Nordic countries were paced in the top ten. The fifth of the Nordics, Norway, was this year ranked twelfth.  這點我就不的不佩服了 連續三年 獲選為世界上貪污最少的國家 

Telecommunications

Finland's mobile phone market together with the markets of the other Nordic countries, is one of the most developed in the world. Finland has some 73 cellular phones per 100 inhabitants. Today there are more mobile phone than fixed network subscriptions.

 People in Finland have been familiar with mobile phones for years and were quick to start buying them once they became generally affordable. There may also have been an element of national pride behind the Finnish enthusiasm for the mobile; after all, the Nokia corporation, the world's biggest manufacturer of mobile phones, was founded and is still headquartered in Finland

 Finland is one of the leading countries in Internet use. At the end of 1999 there were 121 Internet hosts per thousand inhabitants, a total that put Finland in first place among the Nordic countries and in second position in the world, surpassed only by the United States, where there were 134 connections per thousand persons. In the Nordic area, the number in Iceland was 99, in Norway 89, in Sweden 67 and in Denmark 64.

Child care

 Finland takes good care of its babies. UNICEF statistics published in 1997 make Finland's infant mortality rate of four deaths of babies under the age of one year for every 1,000 births, the lowest in the world  居然連世界最低嬰兒死亡率也能拿來說

Investment in education and the arts

Finnish people may seem somewhat reserved but they are well educated.Finland invests 7.2% of its GNP in education, the highest figure within the OECD, the group which includes the western industrialized countries and  

  Finland's literacy rate is 100 per cent and the country holds almost all the world records related to public libraries. In proportion to its population (c. 5 million), it has the highest number of registered borrowers, the highest borrowing rate (19.7 books or recordings per person per year) and one of the highest visiting rates.  Finland has the world's highest per capita rate of public funding for the arts and museums, some 90.83 euro (c. USD 100) annually.

 芬蘭在教育上是花最多錢 擁有世界第一的閱讀率 圖書館館數密度最高 書藉出借率最高 也就是他們很愛看書 
光這點讓我很想以後生小孩就把小孩送去那接受教育 

   Consumption

 The Finns are absolutely crazy about good coffee. With a consumption of 14 kilograms per person annually, they drink more of it per capita than any other nation.
The Finns are very fond of buying and reading newspapers. They rank third in the world in terms of newspaper circulation relative to population: 456 newspapers per 1,000 inhabitants.  連咖啡也喝的比別人多  報紙發行量也是世界第三

 Lifestyle

This one will come as no surprise. On second thoughts, perhaps it will. The national statistics bureau says there is a sauna for every household in Finland; another world record. Many of them are built close to the country's 400,000 vacation cabins which are usually by a lake, a river or the sea  居然是每戶都有三溫暖 又是一項世界紀錄 

Islands, lakes and forests

An archipelago is a group of islands. The archipelago off south-west Finland is the biggest in the world, measured by the number of islands in it - more than 20,000.

In Finland we call a lake a lake when its surface area is at least 500 square metres. On that basis, Finland has 187,888 lakes, their average area 18 Forest covers 70% of Finland's land area, the highest proportion in the world. It is not surprising, then, that Finland is one of the world's leading exporters of forest products. In exports of paper and paperboard Finland is second in the world, after Canada. Many of the world's eminent newspapers are produced on Finnish newsprint.hectares. 森林比例是70%又是世界第一  身為世界森林保護的專家之一 芬蘭卻世界第二大紙類製品的出口國   台灣該好好檢討

  
Motor sport

Finland's already high reputation in motor sport was given a massive boost on November 1, 1998, when Mika Häkkinen won the Suzuka Grand Prix to become the Formula One champion of the world. Finland's Keke Rosberg won the title in 1982. Finland's tricky road conditions in winter are sometimes offered as the reason why Finnish rally drivers are so good. Whatever the reason, five Finnish drivers have become world rally champions, more than any other nationality. One of them, Juha Kankkunen, has been champion four times, an achievement still unequalled. Tommi Mäkinen of Finlandwon the rally drivers' world championship 1998. He has two earlier championship. 



After reading this .... I have become more and more interested in visiting this country ...   wanna come ??