| Languages of Åland | |
|---|---|
| Official | Swedish |
| Minority | Finnish |
| Foreign | English |
Åland, an autonomous region ofFinland, has the largestSwedish-speaking majority in Finland, with about 88% of the province, or about 25,500 people, speakingSwedish as their first language (specifically theÅland 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.
| Mother tongue | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2000 | 2010 | 2020 | ||||
| Number | % | Number | % | Number | % | |
| Swedish | 24,169 | 93.77% | 25,173 | 89.88% | 25,986 | 86.25% |
| Finnish | 1,238 | 4.8% | 1,373 | 4.9% | 1,405 | 4.66% |
| Romanian | 2 | 0.01% | 166 | 0.59% | 501 | 1.66% |
| Latvian | 5 | 0.02% | 195 | 0.7% | 443 | 1.47% |
| Estonian | 23 | 0.09% | 138 | 0.49% | 206 | 0.68% |
| English | 69 | 0.27% | 97 | 0.35% | 164 | 0.54% |
| Norwegian | 36 | 0.14% | 34 | 0.12% | 41 | 0.14% |
| Other | 234 | 0.91% | 831 | 2.97% | 1,424 | 4.73% |
There are 59 spoken native languages in 2020 (with a total population of 29,884):[2]
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]