| Summary: | Abstract The aim of this work was to determine the extent of land ownership by companies in Northern Finland over the period 1885–1939, what companies acquired land, what prices they paid for it and the reasons for them doing this. Attention is also paid to the general and regional causes of these sales of land. The perspective adopted is largely that of the industrial sector, so that the economic and social repercussions are deemed to lie beyond the scope of this work, and even the immediate consequences of the purchases of land are touched on only in passing. The timber companies were most active in acquiring land in 1900–1920, over which period their holdings increased more than 6-fold (from 79 690 ha to 513 450 ha). In 1915 the companies owned 3.6% of the total surface area of Northern Finland, 8.8% of the private land and 5.7% of the total number of farm or forest properties. The land holdings of the timber companies decreased from 1920 onwards and became established at around 450 000 ha in the 1930s. This took place through the companies releasing land for settlement purposes, either voluntarily or under the Land Restoration Law of 1925, seeking in this way to rid themselves of land that was of no use to them. The chief focus of purchases of land by the timber companies in Northern Finland was in Kainuu, where they owned a total of 292 820 ha at the peak in this trend, in 1920. Over the period 1915–1939 about 60% of the land owned by such companies in Northern Finland was situated in Kainuu, and even by 1915 they had acquired about 27% of all the privately-owned land in the region. The main reason for the timber companies’ interest in purchasing land was the expansion in sawn timber production, which meant that the volume of timber required for this purpose increased from 2.6 million stems in 1870 to 34 million by 1910. At the same time the pulp and paper industries were also stepping up production. There was a fear that Finland’s forest reserves would be exhausted by this level of utilization. At the time ...
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