I am delighted to have the opportunity to witness the staging here in Reykjavik's new and beautiful National Library of an exhibition commemorating 500 years of Finland on the map of Europe. I believe that this exhibition will attract the interest it deserves and contribute also to promoting cooperation between Finland and Iceland in science and education.

The exhibition presents Finland's depiction in maps from 15th-century Ptolemaic representations to the beginnings of scientific cartography in the 17th century. Arab cartographers around the beginning of the present millennium were already aware of Finland's existence, but our earliest appearance on a printed map was in 1493, when our country appeared, under the name of Finland rather than Suomi, on a map of Europe published by Hartman Schedel. On the same map the island of Iceland is shown, like Finland, far in the north. It was in those days of the late Middle Ages that the development of Finnish cartography began from an indeterminate shape on the edge of the extreme north. The small amount of knowledge about Finland that existed in the beginning of the 16th century gradually expanded as the century went on, and accounts inherited from the authorities of Antiquity about peoples shrouded in fable gradually began yielding to more accurate information.

Both the Finns and the Icelanders have had able scientists in the field of the history of cartography, active individuals who have tirelessly collected maps and data relating to them by, among other things, travelling around the world. The earliest cartographers deserve to be regarded as explorers gifted with quite impressive capability. The earliest maps also bear highly vivid illustrations of the way of life and culture in those days, which gives them even greater value from the perspective of historical development.

Both Finland and Iceland are located quite far from what has traditionally been thought of as the centre of Europe. In the early Middle Ages it was quite important gradually to become known and in that way also to gain recognition as a separate nation. With the aid of the earliest maps, the European intelligentsia received basic information about the lives and circumstances of the northern peoples. As society developed, our own cartography, which could better and more accurately represent our location and living conditions, also grew. The early maps facilitated the beginning of land-surveying operations. "One has to learn to know the country properly before its economy can be improved," as Jakob Faggot, an inspector with the Land Survey Office, noted in the middle of the 18th century.

The purpose of this exhibition has been to show how and in what form a picture of Finland was conveyed, with the aid of published maps, to the awareness of Europe's learned, as well as to explain which stages of history the published maps relate to.

A considerable part of the maps on exhibition belong to Finland's biggest private collection, which is the result of many years of work on the part of a father and son, Eero and Erkki Feedrikson. The exhibition was put together at the Museum of Keski-Suomi in Jyväskylä. I hope that in the course of this month, when the exhibition is running here at the National Library, as many people as possible will find an opportunity to see this collection which describes the development of a nation. With these words, I hereby declare the Finland 500 Years on the Map of Europe exhibition open.