Editing Finland Swedish (section)

==History==
{{Main|Swedish-speaking Finns#History|l1=History of Swedish-speaking Finns}}
[[File:Languages of Finnish municipalities (2016).svg|thumb|right|
More than 17,000 Swedish-speaking Finns live in officially monolingual Finnish municipalities, and are thus not represented on the map.
{{legend|#EEEEC1|Officially monolingual Finnish-speaking municipalities}}
{{legend|#37ABC8|Bilingual municipalities with Finnish as the majority language}}
{{legend|#0055D4|Bilingual municipalities with Swedish as the majority language}}
{{legend|#000080|Monolingual Swedish-speaking municipalities (Åland)}}
{{legend|#800033|[[Sami languages|Sami]] bilingual municipalities}}
|348x348px]]Finland Swedish was a result of [[Swedish colonisation of Finland]] during the [[Northern Crusades]] in the 12th to 14th centuries. Colonisation focused on the [[Finnish archipelago]] and some of its coastal regions. This colonisation  led to the beginning of the [[Swedish-speaking population of Finland]].<ref name="Georg 2015">{{Cite book|first1=Georg |last1=Haggren |first2=Petri |last2=Halinen |first3=Mika |last3=Lavento |first4=Sami |last4=Raninen |first5=Anna |last5=Wessman |title=Muinaisuutemme jäljet |publisher=Gaudeamus |year=2015 |isbn=9789524953634 |location=Helsinki |pages=420–421}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|title=The Era of Swedish Rule, 1150-1809|url=http://motherearthtravel.com/history/finland/history-3.htm|access-date=June 1, 2019|publisher=History of Finland|archive-date=June 22, 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190622184223/http://motherearthtravel.com/history/finland/history-3.htm|url-status=dead}}</ref>

From the 16th century, Swedish was the main language of jurisdiction, administration and higher education in [[Finland]] (which was then a part of [[Sweden]]), but the majority of the population in the Finnish inland spoke [[Finnish language|Finnish]] outside of these sectors of society, i.e. in normal, daily life. In 1809, when Finland was conquered by the [[Russian Empire]] and became an autonomous [[Grand Duchy of Finland|Grand Duchy]], Swedish remained the only official language. In 1863, both Finnish and Swedish became [[official language]]s with equal status, and by the time of [[Finnish Declaration of Independence|Finland's independence]] in 1917, after a [[Finnicization]] campaign by the [[Fennoman movement]], Finnish clearly dominated in government and society. See further: [[Finland's language strife]].

Finland has since then been a [[bilingual]] country with a Swedish-speaking [[minority language|minority]] (5.2% of [[mainland Finland]]'s population in December 2019) living mostly in the coastal areas of southern, south-western, and western Finland. During the 20th century, the [[urbanization]] following the [[Industrial Revolution]] has led to large majorities of Finnish speakers in all major cities. The capital [[Helsinki]] (in Swedish Helsingfors) became predominantly Finnish-speaking as recently as around 1900. A large and important part of the Swedish-speaking population nevertheless lives in the capital.{{cn|date=June 2024}}

The autonomous island province of [[Åland]] is an exception, being monolingually Swedish-speaking according to international treaties. It is a matter of definition whether the [[Åland Swedish|Swedish dialects spoken on Åland]] are to be considered a kind of Finland Swedish or not. Most Swedish-speaking Finns and linguists consider them to be closer to some of the dialects spoken in nearby parts of Sweden.