Åland – Lighthouse at Market

Märket is a small 3.3 hectares (8.2 acres) uninhabited skerry in the Baltic Sea between Sweden and FinlandÅland Islands), (in the area of the autonomous which has been divided between two sovereignties since the Treaty of Fredrikshamn of 1809, and is in urgent need of maintenance, and a Finnish interest group is trying to raise funds for its preservation. The lighthouse has been automatic since 1979 and the surrounding buildings are no longer used. The increasing general availability of GPS has made its primary function redundant. Russia and then Finland operated the lighthouse in Swedish territory. In 1981, Sweden and Finland signed a treaty in which the ground under the lighthouse was transferred to Finland in return for an equal area of land in the Finnish half. As a result, the border now snakes across the tiny island in an intricate inverted-S curve, and the lighthouse is finally in Finland. defined the border between Sweden and Russian Empire as going through the middle of the island. The westernmost land point of Finland is on Märket. The Finnish side of the island is part of the Municipality of Hammarland. The Swedish part of island is itself divided by two counties of Sweden - Uppsala County (Östhammar Municipality) and Stockholm County (Norrtälje Municipality).The lighthouse on the card shown in the picture was sent to me by Merja