Languages of Åland

Åland, an autonomous region of Finland, has the largest Swedish-speaking majority in Finland, with about 88% of the province, or about 25,500 people, speaking Swedish as their first language (specifically the Åland Swedish dialect). Swedish is also the sole official language of the province.[1] Finnish also has a presence, although it is small; only about 5% of Ålanders are Finnish-speaking.

The Åland province of Finland, highlighted in red

The ten most spoken native languages in 2019 (with a total population of 29,884):[2]

• Swedish: 25,862 (86.54%)
• Finnish: 1,401 (4.69%)
• Romanian: 486 (1.63%)
• Latvian: 420 (1.41%)
• Estonian: 202 (0.68%)
• Russian: 154 (0.52%)
• Thai: 154 (0.52%)
• English: 149 (0.50%)
• Arabic: 123 (0.41%)
• German: 108 (0.36%)
• Others: 825 (2.76%)

While the number of Swedish-speakers grew from 24,169 in 2000 to 25,862 in 2019, their percentage has dropped from 93.7% in 2000 to 86.5% in 2019. For Finnish, the percentage and number of speakers has been about same (from 1,238 to 1,401; from 4.8% to 4.7%). The percentage of speakers of other languages grew from 1.5% in 2000 to 8.8% in 2019.[2]