Much of the music of Finland is influenced by Karelian traditional tunes and lyrics, as comprised in the Kalevala. Karelian culture is perceived as the purest expression of the Finnic myths and beliefs, less influenced by Germanic influence, in contrast to Finland's position between the East and the West. Finnish folk music has undergone a roots revival in recent decades, and has become a part of popular music. The people of northern Finland, the Sami, have their own musical traditions, collectively Sami music. Modern Finnish popular music includes a renowned death metal scene, in common with other Nordic countries, as well as a number of prominent rock bands, jazz musicians and hip hop performers. Finnish popular music also includes a large amount of opera and various kinds of dance music; tango, a style of Argentinian music, is also popular.

Finnish architecture means, almost without exception, modern architecture, or at least the built environment as it has been realised over the last 100 years. It could hardly be otherwise, for the building stock as a whole is young; less than 13% of it dates back to before 1920. There are scarcely any architectural drawings to be found from before the 19th century and even in the early 19th century very few of them were actually made. Finland is still extremely sparsely populated; the average density remains less than 17 people per square kilometre. The landscape is dominated by nature; 70 per cent of the country's land area is virgin forest, 10 per cent water. The key quality of Finnish architecture is its openness to outside influences, combined with a strong feeling for contextuality, the utilization of local conditions and local resources. A good example is afforded by the national romanticism of the end of the 19th century, which, despite its name, was a direct adaptation of the European Jugend or Art Nouveau style. It embraced motifs from various parts of North America and other countries, including the squared rubble stone technique, and combined international influences with the proportions and materials of Finnish stone churches and castles, and wooden vernacular buildings. The result was an architecture that was seen as an original and national approach, which flowered for a relatively brief period. The building of the 1950s, on the other hand, expresses a synthesis of rational and organic approaches. Its starting-point was International Modernism, which in Finland took on more plastic, tactile and natural tones even before the Second World War, particularly in the work of Alvar Aalto and Erik Bryggman.

There was little literature created in Finland. The most significant writer was Jöns Budde, from the Brigittine monastery at Naantali, who lived in the latter part of the 15th century. He is the earliest writer known by name in Finland. His work included the translation of whole books of the Bible into Swedish. No evidence of the literary work carried on in Dominican and Franciscan monasteries in Finland has been preserved. For a long time even in the 17th century, the literature appearing in Finland was almost solely religious. It was not until Finland's own university was founded in 1640 that academic literature began to appear alongside religious writings. The first edition of the Kalevala (the Finnish National Epic) appeared in 1835, compiled and edited by Elias Lönnrot on the basis of the epic folk poems he had collected in Finland and Karelia. The Kalevala marked an important turning-point for Finnish-language culture and caused a stir abroad as well. It brought a small, unknown people to the attention of other Europeans, and bolstered the Finns' self-confidence and faith in the possibilities of a Finnish language and culture. Lönnrot and his colleagues continued their efforts to collect folk poetry, and new material quickly accumulated. Using this new material, Lönnrot published a second, expanded version of the Kalevala in 1849. This New Kalevala is the version which has been read in Finland ever since and upon which most translations are based. Tove Jansson (1914-2001) of Finland, was creator of the world of the moomintrolls and their friends, a world which is both strange and a little dangerous, while being pleasant and familiar at the same time. Tove Marika Jansson (August 9, 1914 - June 27, 2001) was a Finnish novelist, painter, illustrator and comic strip author. She is the author of, among other works, the Moomin books. Finnish literature has a comparatively short history to look back on, but today it displays such variety as is to be found in other European countries. Finland's lively literary scene flourishes under propitious conditions, including a dense network of public libraries, an increasingly sophisiticated publishing world, and a highly varied system of grants and literary prizes. Finnish literature too produces the familiar range of standard bestsellers: thrillers (e.g. by Ilkka Remes), detective novels (Leena Lehtolainen), sentimental family sagas (Laila Hietamies), regional literature (Kalle Päätalo) and humorous picaresque novels (Arto Paasilinna).

Russian films were influential in Finnish cinema especially in 20s and 30s. Nyrki Tapiovaara's, Stolen Death, could not have been made if Eisenstein had not existed. After the Second World War, the New Wave and Italian neorealism gradually arrived. The most influential breakthrough was around 1960, when Maunu Kurkvaara started to make films like Antonioni. In his films people don't say much, they drift in and out of shots, and the camera goes around. This was unseen in Finnish cinema at that time. Finally you end up with someone like Aki Kaurismäki, who has not learned from anybody, except Jean-Luc Godard. Kaurismäki's films are not about the Finland that many Finns know. That's why they are not as popular in Finland, as outside the country. It's the same with Bergman's films in Sweden.