Aland

The archipelago of Aland is an autonomous province of Finland. It is the only Swedish speaking region of Finland with almost 30.000 inhabitants. In 1921 the League of Nations decided that Aland should be governed by Finland and not Sweden. The region was demilitarized and the rights of the Swedish speaking people were guaranteed. When Finland joined the European Union in 1995, certain rights of the islands were preserved.

In 1984 the first stamps for Aland were issued by the Finnish postal administration in cooperation with the Aland government. From 1 January 1993 Aland Post became an independent postal administration. Aland issues a reasonable amount of stamps each year with a lot of attention for local subjects and culture.

For the envelope I bought the latest Europa stamp from the Aland postal administration at the Briefmarken-Messe in Essen in May 2017 and left the envelope with them. Within a week it arrived at my home. The postmark is from the central postal terminal and the priority label was affixed by Aland Post.

Website of Aland Post (in English): alandstamps.com.

Date sent: 11 May 2017

Date postmark: 15 May 2017

Date received: 18 May 2017

Number of days: 7

Envelope in collection: 81