The triangular sea stretches between Mariehamn, Uusikaupunki, and Hanko, covering 8,300 square kilometers of water dotted with land. The larger islands hold villages and small towns; the outer archipelago consists of bare rocks where junipers grow sideways against the wind, never rising more than a meter tall. The geology reveals three crater-like formations: Lumparn in Aland is a genuine impact crater, while the Ava Intrusion in Brando municipality shows clearly in satellite imagery. The sea itself is shallow, most channels impassable for large vessels, the labyrinthine waterways demanding local knowledge and maritime pilots. Navigation marks and lighthouses punctuate every significant passage through this maze of granite and gneiss, rocks so hard that erosion cannot keep pace with the land's relentless rise.

The 60,000 permanent residents of the archipelago carry a genetic legacy unique in Europe. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, twin births occurred here at rates higher than anywhere else on the continent, far exceeding the Finnish mainland. Scientists traced the cause to diet: the abundant fish provided protein and unsaturated fats even when crops failed, optimizing conditions for multiple births. The Swedish-speaking communities of Aland and the Finnish-speaking villages of the northern islands developed distinct cultures shaped by isolation and the sea. Every Christmas, fishermen from Korpo deliver a northern pike to the president's table, continuing a tradition that honors the archipelago's maritime heritage. The president's own summer residence, Kultaranta, sits on the island of Luonnonmaa in Naantali.

The autonomous region of Aland exists because of decisions made after the Crimean War. When Anglo-French forces destroyed the Bomarsund fortress in 1854, the Treaty of Paris mandated that Aland be demilitarized, a status that survived two world wars and persists today. Finnish Defence Forces cannot enter Aland territory in peacetime; residents are exempt from military service. The eastern archipelago, by contrast, is defended by the Archipelago Sea Naval Command based in Turku, relying on naval mines and coastal artillery uniquely suited to these narrow channels where invading vessels would find their maneuverability severely limited. When Finland joined the European Union in 1995, Aland held a separate referendum, its autonomy allowing for the possibility of a different outcome that could have left it outside the EU, like Greenland's relationship to Denmark.

Winter transforms the archipelago. Ice roads connect islands that ferries serve in summer, allowing cars and even heavy vans to drive across frozen channels. But spring and autumn bring kelirikko, the thaw period when ice is too weak for walking yet too thick for boats, isolating communities for days or weeks until hydrocopters, hovercrafts, or helicopters can reach them. The Archipelago Ring Road links the most inhabited eastern islands through a network of bridges, free ferries, and roads totaling 250 kilometers of pavement and 50 kilometers of waterway crossings. Twenty thousand tourists travel it annually, most between June and August, pausing at medieval churches dating from the thirteenth century, when Christianity reached these islands before the Finnish mainland. The churches of Aland are the oldest parish churches in Finland, stone monuments to the archipelago's role as the gateway through which both faith and commerce entered the Nordic lands.