Åland - Map card (FI-541354)

Finding this card in my mailbox yesterday was one of the best postcrossing surprises I've ever received :) Actually, it's an official card from Finland, but it was sent in an envelope together with 2 other wonderful cards, also fitting my wishlist just perfectly! :) Finnish postcrossers are usually very kind and generous and I really don't understand, why do some people complain so much about the amount of Finnish cards that they receive :)

But this card, though it was sent from Finland, won't be labeled as Finland, because it's actually my first card from Åland Islands :) I'm not sure, if this autonomous province of Finland should be treated as an separate territory in my collection, because on the world map that I update each time I receive a card from new country or territory there's no Åland on the list. On the other hand, this territory has a wide autonomy, it's own flag, internet domain (.ax) and they also issue their own stamps, as far as I know. Not surprisingly, my decision is to count Åland separately and therefore I already have cards from 68 different countries/ territories :)

FI-541354

The Åland Islands (Swedish: Åland, Finnish: Ahvenanmaa) form an archipelago in the Baltic Sea. It is situated at the entrance to the Gulf of Bothnia and forms an autonomous, demilitarized, monolingually Swedish-speaking administrative province, region and historical province of Finland. It is the smallest province of Finland, comprising 0.5% of Finland's population and 0.49% of land area.

The islands consist of the main island Fasta Åland (literally "Firm Åland"), where 90% of the population resides, and an archipelago to the east that consists of over 6,500 skerries and islands. Fasta Åland is separated from the coast of Sweden by forty kilometres (twenty-five miles) of open water to the west. In the east, the Åland archipelago is virtually contiguous with the Finnish Archipelago Sea. Åland's only land border is located on the uninhabited skerry of Märket, which it shares with Sweden.