In the land of thousands of lakes, boats were an important mode of transport.

The unknown North attracted the interest of European merchants in the Middle Ages. Coasts were mapped first to establish potential routes. Rivers allowed access deeper inland into the sparsely populated country and its ubiquitous lakes.

In the winter the frozen lakes, rivers and marshy areas offered additional routes. Travelling from one settlement to another was easier by water than by road. Tar was transported in long rowboats to the harbours on the coast for shipping to all four corners of the earth. Traders from eastern Finland sailed the great rivers of Russia far into the south.

Old roads followed the contours of the land, leading from castle to church to castle. The winding roads were long, the weather made the roads impassable for long stretches at a time, and travellers went in fear or robbers and loss of life.

Travelling peddlers or peasants taking their wares to the market outnumbered churchmen and nobles on the road. In wartime the road echoed with the soldiers on the march as frontiers shifted to and fro. War was often followed by famine, which reduced great masses of people to beggars wandering across the land. Without shelter they often succumbed to diseases which spread to epidemic proportions.

In the 16th and 17th century, improving the road network became one of the crown’s principal objectives. The establishment of a postal system and a regular network of inns increased the cohesion of the nation and helped news spread faster. The crown wished to bring even the most distant corners of the realm under its control.

As new modes of transport were developed, nature was harnessed to serve people. A view of the Hiidenportti National Park in Sotkamo.

Sweden ceded Finland to Russia in 1809. The Russian government adopted a number of political measures promoting the integration of Finns in the Russian Empire. Improving the road network was one of the political tools used for this purpose. In eastern Finland in particular, the shift in borders gave local merchants access to a marketing area of huge potential.

For the landless folk, the infrastructure projects gave new opportunities for employment. The construction of the Saimaa Canal and Finland's first railway between Helsinki and Hämeenlinna ensured that there would be bread on the table for years. The government also maintained a railroad construction crew as a relief effort during the 19th-century famine.

Previously, land arrangements had been largely based on the needs of agriculture or forestry. The development of new modes of transportation introduced completely new elements on the map. International influences and mobility increased more rapidly than ever before. The events of the 19th century were only the start, however.

Motorization brought land surveyors and their cars to even the most distant regions. A road covered with logs lashed together near the Lokka reservoir in northern Finland.

As movement increases, so does the space it requires. The impact of man has spread ever wider. Large-scale road or railway construction projects require extensive land rearragements. Roads split farms and fields in two, necessitating new rearrangements.

Since the 1960s, traffic has flown from the country into the towns. Permanent settlements fill the densely-populated urban areas. As the value of land rises, this increases the pressures on its use and allotment. Yet land survey activities are not only measured quantitatively; one of the purposes of land survey is to prevent the depopulation of the countryside.