Finningia

{{Short description|Old Latin name for Finland}}

File:Carta Marina.jpeg, a 1539 map by the historian and cartographer Olaus Magnus]]

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Finningia is one of the Latin names for Finland, along with Fennia, Finnia and Finlandia. The name first appeared in Carta marina, the Scandinavian map from 1539 created by the historian and cartographer Olaus Magnus. Olaus Magnus placed Finlandia vel Finningia olim regnum ("Finlandia or Finningia, an ancient kingdom") around Southwest Finland, suggesting an unhistorical past kingdom of Finland.{{Cite journal |last=Viljamaa |first=Toivo |date=2008-10-25 |title=Porthan ja suomalaisuus |url=https://journal.fi/aur/article/view/645 |journal=AURAICA. Scripta a Societate Porthan edita |language=fi |issue=1 |page=32 |issn=1797-5913}}

In Naturalis Historia ("Natural History"), Pliny the Elder mentions the island of Aeningia (with variant spellings such as Einingia and Eningia) as a "nearly equally large island" after Scatinavia. Johannes Magnus, the brother of Olaus Magnus, suggested in his Historia de omnibus Gothorum Sueonumque regibus (published posthumously in 1554) that this name should be read as Finningia.{{Cite web |last=Johannes Magnus |first= |date=2018 |title=Goternas och Svearnas Historia |url=https://litteraturbanken.se/f%C3%B6rfattare/JohannesMagnus/titlar/GoternasOchSvearnas/sida/II.75/faksimil |access-date=2025-02-23 |website=Litteraturbanken |page=II.75}}

File:Jacob_Zieglers_nordenkart,_1532_eller_1536.jpg]]

However, there is no agreement on what Pliny meant by Aeningia. The scholar and cartographer Jacob Ziegler placed Finlandia and Einingia next to each other in Southwest Finland in his map from 1532,{{cite web |date=1998-11-04 |title=Finland as a separate peninsula with several place names |url=http://virtual.finland.fi/finfo/English/map/map4.html |url-status=dead |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20080615201610/http://virtual.finland.fi/finfo/English/map/map4.html |archivedate=2008-06-15 |accessdate=2008-11-24 |publisher=Virtual Finland}} and the French classical scholar Jean Hardouin believed that Aeningia referred to the area of modern Finland. Louis Poinsinet de Sivry and others have argued that it instead referred to the area of the present-day Baltic States.{{cite book |last=Nyström |first=Johan Fredrik |title=Geografiens och de geografiska upptäckternas historia |publisher=C. E. Fritze |year=1899 |location=Stockholm |page=[28 https://runeberg.org/geohist/0036.html] |language=Swedish |oclc=83894587}} Valentin Parisot has suggested that Aeningia might refer to the island of Zealand, where there is a village by the name Hejninge.{{Cite book |last=Pliny |first=the Elder |url=https://archive.org/details/histoirenaturell03plin/histoirenaturell03plin/page/316/mode/2up?q=Scandinavia |title=Histoire naturelle de Pline |last2=Grandsagne |first2=Ajasson de |date=1833 |publisher=Paris : C. L. F. Panckoucke |others=University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign}}{{cite web |author=Pliny the Elder |others=John Bostock, Henry Thomas Riley (translators and editors); Gregory R. Crane (Chief editor) |title=The Natural History |year=1855 |publisher=Taylor and Francis; Tufts University: Perseus Digital Library |url=http://data.perseus.org/citations/urn:cts:latinLit:phi0978.phi001.perseus-eng1:4.27 |access-date=23 February 2025|location=Plin. Nat. 4.27}}