Åland (1983: Doomsday)

Åland ([ˈoːland]; Finnish Ahvenanmaa) is an island Republic in the Baltic Sea that forms part of the. The islands are situated at the entrance to the Gulf of Bothnia. Åland was formerly part of Finland. It is one of the smallest nations in the world, only about 0.49% of Finland's de jure 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 by 38 kilometres (24 mi) 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.

Although once part of Finland it has moved on and now has its own government.

The Islands are also part of the, which has helped it recover from its economic depression.

Pre-Doomsday
Åland was part of the ancient Kingdom of Sweden, though administratively it was linked with Turku in the seventeenth century. In 1809, Russia defeated Sweden in the Napoleonic Wars and seized all of Finland. Åland was included in this cession and was considered strategically important: it was said that "Russia would not take a trunk without the keys."

Åland was demilitarized in 1856 as part of the settlement ending the Crimean War. Nevertheless, the islands were used as a submarine base during World War I. As both Russia and Finland fell into civil war, Ålanders petitioned for annexation to Sweden. The new Finnish government offered the islands autonomous status within the new Republic of Finland, which the Ålanders rejected. The question was deferred to the League of Nations in 1921, which sided with Finland but forced them to guarantee Åland wide autonomy: it was to be fully self-governing, neutral, demilitarized, and would have Swedish as its sole official language.

Over the course of the twentieth century Åland began to develop an identity of its own, shaped by its years as an autonomous part of Finland. In 1970 the Nordic Council voted to allow Åland to send its own representatives as part of the Finnish delegation, a step on its way to being recognized as a separate "Nordic nation."

Doomsday and Aftermath
The Aland Islands, as a neutral region, were spared from the nuclear onslaught. However, Finland soon collapsed into violence as thousands of Soviet citizens desperately fled for the Finnish border, and riots and hysteria engulfed Helsinki and other cities. Åland was occupied by a radical anticommunist faction that had emerged in the area around Turku. The group saw the islands' advantages as an offshore base. Claiming to be the legitimate government of Finland, the group installed its own Governor but did not abolish local self-government. In 1987 the faction accepted the authority of Finland's new transitional government, but a splinter group of diehards remained in control of Åland and parts of the mainland to the north of Turku.

Sweden, somewhat opportunistically, sent an expedition to Åland late in 1987 to keep the peace. The Swedes installed a friendly executive and soon after the government announced that it would "provisionally" re-annex Åland "as an emergency measure." However, the islands remained difficult for the resource-strapped Swedish government to defend. By 1990 Åland was claimed by Sweden and Finland but largely on its own. It had become a rather notorious base for pirates who preyed on the slowly reviving local trade on the Baltic. Despite these challenges, Åland's elected legislature continued to administer the islands and do what it could to maintain the peace.

When the Nordic Union was formed in 1990, Åland was a major point of tension between the struggling governments of Sweden and Finland. The other Nordic countries supported Finland and would not acknowledge Sweden's annexation of the islands, but Sweden, being in much better shape than Finland, was able to apply pressure by the promise of aid. Backed by petioners from Åland itself, Sweden got Finland to agree to give still more autonomy to the islands, making them a fully sovereign republic. The President of Finland would remain the official head of state, but Åland would conduct its own foreign policy and would operate outside the authority of the Finnish Parliament in almost all cases.

Åland first sent a delegation to the Nordic Union in 1991, but the islands remained dangerous and wild for many years. NU forces dislodged the last major pirate base in 2003.