In a land covered by impenetrable forests, settled areas were connected by lakes and rives.

There is a popular myth which is often told to explain the Finns' belligerent nature. A Finn builds his home on the riverside. Some time later he notices a fresh chip of wood in the water. ”Someone has come onto my land.” He takes the axe and goes in search of the intruder. Soon the waters of the river run red with blood.

Some have questioned the myth, pointing out that the newcomer could also be seen as a potential friend. The birth of the myth nevertheless demonstrates the Finns’ passionate attitude to border issues.

In 1626 Anders Bure was a happy man: after two decades of painstaking work, he had finally completed a map depicting the entire Swedish realm. Bure's map was commonly acknowledged to be far superior to any existing maps.

The map displayed the wonders of the entire Swedish realm all the way to the northernmost corners of Lapland.

All of the discomforts Bure had endured could be blamed on the king, who had realised the importance of maps and their impact on his rule of the land. Information marked on a map was a useful weapon to wield when negotiating border arrangements with the neighbouring countries – or for rulers with expansionist tendencies. Borders were often vague, which caused disputes between countries wishing to join the great powers of the world. Such disputes were long in resolution.

The close proximity of the houses required a neighbourly attitude, but it also promoted natural interaction between the villagers.

Since the 1757 decree on the land reform, the position of surveyor was seldom to be envied. When carrying out their duties, surveyors could find themselves the target of not just sharp words but mud, dirt and even sharp weapons.

The execution of the land reform meant that peasants could no longer settle border issues among themselves; this duty was transferred to surveyors in their capacity as the crown's officials. Many found it hard to trust that an outsider would divide the lands without fear or favour. From times immemorial villagers had themselves defined the holdings of each farmer – even if disputes had to be settled by fistfight at times.

Borders marked off the farmer’s private property, which was also the source of his livelihood. Landowners were loath to allow just anyone on their land to mark its borders. Some even said that 'the appearance of a surveyor in the village presages danger'.

The security offered by a house of your own went further than just providing a roof over your head.

When you are looking over a landscape of fields and forests, it probably does not occur to you to consider how such beauty was created. Farmers cleared the fields, often with no other tools than their own two hands. They felled the tall trees and set fire to the bushes to level the earth. Large rocks had to be removed and ditches dug to drain out the wetlands.

The work put into the establishment of a new farm explains the settlers' emotional ties with the land.

In his Under the North Star trilogy, the author Väinö Linna gave a symbolic expression to the importance of land in people’s lives. In a memorable scene Jussi Koskela, the protagonist (and probably the most famous Finnish settler) has just been told that he must return a large share of his rented holdings to the church. There is no help, Koskela will have to agree even though it is hard to hand over the fields he has cleared in the stony ground with his own hands. Koskela’s grudging words gives a tangible expression to the meaning of land.

Demarcation of the border between Finland and Russia in 1934.

Wars disrupt borders. Located between two mightier neighbours, it was Finland's fate to serve as a battlefield for several centuries. In the 16th and 17th centuries, lines of battle and borders kept shifting back and forth. Life on the frontier was uncertain; on the other hand, influences from across the borders also made it richer.

After the Continuation War (1941-1944) Finland's eastern border was moved west one more time. Most of the province of Karelia was ceded to Russia and more than 400,000 Finns were forced to leave their homes: a heavy loss. The evacuees – the immigrants of their time – were settled elsewhere in the country. The new cultures and dialects were very different from their own, and thus the arrival of evacuees also erased borders of a different kind.

World War II changed borders across Europe. During the era of the Cold War borders were tightly guarded, until the political climate changed at the end of the 20th century and borders were opened.

The volumes of border crossings are increasing continuously. The joint influence of man and nature shifts national borders. Finland and its neighbours review their shared borders regularly; such information was once carefully guarded as a state secret. According to present-day thinking, the more details can be provided about the borders, the more useful such information it is.

Traditional fences have all but disappeared from the landscape. Nowadays, borders and boundaries are less visible, yet they live on in people’s minds.

Within the European Union there are geographical, economic and cultural borders. As such they are much easier to cross than the vigilantly-guarded political borders of nation-states.

The EU aims to promote the movement of people, goods and capital within its borders and has issued several directives for the purpose of erasing borders between the Member States. The attempt to harmonise cartographic data across Europe also reflects this aspiration.

Parallel to this development, the interest in the native region and its culture has gained new ground. In an increasingly global world, people wish to define their own place and look to their immediate surroundings for safety. Borders help establish an individual identity. In Finland, lakes and their shorelines are regarded as national property, which explains the lively debate that has sprung up concerning the number of lakeside plots sold to foreign buyers. This, too, shows that borders exist.

Borders keep changing further: landowners exchange strips of land to create larger fields; the establishment of larger administrative regions erases borders as individual municipalities cease to exist. Despite the advantages of such changes there are always emotional factors and nostalgic feelings involved.

It takes longer for borders to disappear from people's minds. The allotment of land and definition of borders always means something more than just taking the measurements of the land with purely mathematical instruments.