One in three Finns would reduce number of municipalities

About one in three Finns would reduce the number of municipalities, according to a survey commissioned by Uutissuomalainen and reported by Yle.

Nearly 40 percent of respondents said the current number of municipalities is appropriate, while 5 percent wanted more municipalities. A further 22 percent were undecided.

One in five respondents supported reducing the number of municipalities and was also willing to merge their own municipality with another. Finland currently has 308 municipalities.

“One reason may be that social and healthcare services have already been transferred to wellbeing services counties. There is also increasing public discussion about how services can be organised in the future,” Minna Karhunen, chief executive of the Association of Finnish Municipalities, told Uutissuomalainen.

The survey was conducted by research company Iro Research in June and July, with 1,000 people responding. The margin of error for the overall results was 3.1 percentage points in either direction.