Does Finland exist?

While current geopolitical matters might have some Finns wishing they were a tad more invisible, at first pass this is hardly a skeptical topic. But this modern conspiracy is worth a chuckle, especially given the exasperated sighs you'll get from that one friend who has more than a passing knowledge of statistics.

A popular version of the Finland conspiracy is geographical in nature, claiming that instead of landmass, Finland is just an empty blot of sea. Fuelling this was Reddit user Rarega, who was taking the mickey out of the fluctuating relationship between Japan and Russia through the 20th and 21st centuries, particularly around fishing rights. Because the “Fin” in Finland refers to the fins on a fish, right? Get it?

Another common argument in support of Finland being non-existent is that the so-called Finns don't even live in Finland, but reside in the bordering countries of Russia, Sweden, and Estonia. This subreddit, r/finlandConspiracy, gives a decent run down as well as this Youtube video by Good Mythical Morning.

If you are a person who likes to bring math into already complicated diplomatic matters, this calculating version of the meme goes like this:

_There's approximately 5.4 million Finnish people in the world, right? That's out of 7.125 billion humans. That means Finns make up 0.0729% of the planet.

That's not even a tenth of a percent. That means that more than 99.9% of the world isn't Finnish. How do we know this? Government censuses.

Now the best government censuses have a margin of error about 1%. So, Finns make up 0.0729% of the planet, plus or minus 1%. In conclusion: There's a 50/50 chance Finland does not exist_

If you really know your memes, you won't be surprised to learn that this is one of the oldest jokes on the internet, with various towns and regions with even smaller populations being deemed as being fictional.

As of 2020, “Finland's” population is just over 5.5 million. However, The world's population that same year was 7.9 billion. Even if we were to believe that anyone lives in Finland, this would still only account for just over 0.07% of the world's population, meaning it is less likely to exist than it ever was before.