Märket

A border through a rock

Märket is a low, rocky islet in the middle of the Sea of Åland, about 350 metres long and 150 wide. When Sweden lost Finland to Russia in the war of 1808–09, the new border was drawn straight through it, and it still splits the islet in two.^[1] It is the only islet shared by Sweden and Finland, and the only land border between them away from the far north.^[2]

The passage around it is narrow and full of rocks, and many ships ran aground there. A pilotage report of 1836 called a lighthouse on such a bare, storm-swept rock a frivolous and fruitless idea.^[1] One was built anyway in 1885: a May storm swept the builders’ materials and barracks into the sea and stranded them for more than a day, but the work was finished in six months, and the 15-metre tower was lit in November.^[1][2]

A border bent around a lighthouse

The builders chose the best spot, in the middle of a high cliff. When the border was later checked, the lighthouse turned out to be on the Swedish side.^[1] In the early 1980s the two countries moved the line so that the lighthouse is in Finland, and compensated Sweden with other land on the islet.^[1][2] The result is a zigzag border that, oddly, lets you stand on Finnish rock and look east into Sweden.^[2]

On the islet itself there are no border formalities: citizens and officials of both countries may land wherever the wind allows, and the turning points of the line are marked on the rock.^[1]

Keepers and volunteers

Keepers lived on Märket until the lighthouse was automated in the late 1970s, and for decades afterwards it decayed.^[1][2] In 2007 the Finnish Lighthouse Society rented it from the Finnish state in return for restoring it, and its volunteers now spend weeks at a time there each season.^[1]