Swedish colonisation of Finland

The Swedish colonisation of Finland took place during the Northern Crusades from the 12th century until the 1350s. Sweden's colonisation efforts focused on the Finnish archipelago and some of its coastal regions and brought speakers of the Swedish language to Finland. The settlers were from central Sweden. It has been estimated that there were thousands of settlers.

Sebastian Münster took notice of the Swedish-speaking population in Finland in his 1544 book Cosmographia. Other than this, the Swedish speakers of Finland attracted less interest among the writings of academics. Mikael Wexonius who served as a professor at the Royal Academy of Åbo in the 17th century took notice of the Swedish-speaking population of the coastal areas of Ostrobothnia and Nyland in his study of the Swedish realm. Wexonius considered these people as descendants of Swedes, but he did not mention the Swedish-speaking population in Åboland. The question of the origin of the Swedish-speaking population in Finland started attracting academic interest in the 18th century and it became an important question in the 19th century when it was important to the concept of national self-understanding.