Appendix:Finnish toponyms

This appendix contains information about toponyms (place names) in the Finnish language.

Locative cases

The Finnish language has two (or possibly three, depending on the definition) sets of locative cases: internal and external. The internal locative cases are the inessive, illative and elative cases, while the external locative cases are the adessive, allative and ablative cases. (For more information, see Appendix:Finnish nominal forms).

When it comes to place names, which set of locative cases is used depends on the place name. The general rule is that the external locative cases are used with bodies of water, any places named after such, and (small) islands, while internal locative cases are used with everything else. There are however many exceptions; perhaps the most notable is Venäjä (“Russia”), a country name with which the external locative cases are used.

With Finnish municipalities and towns, which set of cases ends up being used is sometimes arbitrary, and often ends up confusing even native speakers when they are unfamiliar with the place in question. Furthermore, some place names even have irregular forms.

As an example, the internal locative cases are used with Helsinki. Thus

Olen Helsingissä. (inessive case) ― I am in Helsinki.

Menen Helsinkiin. (illative case) ― I will go to Helsinki.

Tulen Helsingistä. (elative case) ― I come from Helsinki.

but with Tampere, the external locative cases are used:

Olen Tampereella. (adessive case) ― I am in Tampere.

Menen Tampereelle. (allative case) ― I will go to Tampere.

Tulen Tampereelta. (ablative case) ― I come from Tampere.

Note that this only applies when discussing location, and thus the other set of locative cases might not be left entirely unused. As an example, the most common way to express possession (have) in Finnish is to use the verb olla (“to be”) and the adessive case for the subject. Even with words such as Helsinki, the adessive case is still used in this case:

Helsingillä on asema Suomen pääkaupunkina. (adessive case) ― Helsinki has the position of being the capital city of Finland.

A good source for finding which locative cases are used with what place names (for place names within Finland) is Asutusnimihakemisto, although the site is only available in Finnish.

Common words

This list contains words and morphemes commonly used to form place names.