Finland

Finland (Finnish: Suomi; Swedish: Finland), officially the Republic of Finland, is a sovereign state in Europe. A peninsula with the Gulf of Finland to the south and the Gulf of Bothnia to the west, the country has land borders with Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east. Estonia is south of the country across the Gulf of Finland. Finland is situated in the geographical region of Fennoscandia, which also includes Scandinavia. Finland's population is 5.5 million (2014), staying roughly on the same level over the past two decades. The majority of the population is concentrated in the southern region. In terms of area, it is the eighth largest country in Europe and the most sparsely populated country in the European Union.

Links To Peel
Peel played many artists from Finland since the 60's, artists that included those that played Finnish Kantele music from the BBC Archives and various genres of music from the country, including prog rockers Tasavallan Presidentti and electronic artist Aavikko, who he mentioned on his 03 June 2001 (BBC World Service) show as his favourite Finnish artist.

Peel's interest in the country, especially his 1987 European road trip with Sheila and the family to visit Finland, which he unfortunately did not make it due to running out of money and everything closing down in Sweden during the Easter holidays, helped his decision to make his programmes at Peel Acres for Finnish Radio between 1987 and 2003, for Rock Radio and later on Radio Mafia, who he thought was an awful name.

Many occasions, Peel would make comments on his interest in visiting Finland, especially on his 08 November 1998 (BFBS) show where he hoped to visit the country before the millennium. Sadly Peel did not achieve that, but did finally visit the nation with Sheila in 2001, where he pre-recorded the programme from Finland on his 08 May 2001 show. During his time in Finland, Peel visited the Levitation music festival in Lapland.