The Swedish-speaking population of Finland (whose members are called by many names—see below; Swedish: finlandssvenskar; Finnish: suomenruotsalaiset) is a linguistic minority in Finland. They maintain a strong identity and are seen either as a separate cultural, ethnic or linguistic group or, occasionally, a distinct nationality. They speak Finland Swedish, which encompasses both a standard language and distinct dialects that are mutually intelligible with the dialects spoken in Sweden and, to a lesser extent, other Scandinavian languages.

According to Statistics Finland, Swedish is the mother tongue of about 260,000 people in mainland Finland and of about 26,000 people in Åland, a self-governing archipelago off the west coast of Finland, where Swedish is the sole official language. Swedish-speakers comprise 5% of the total Finnish population or about 4.9% without Åland. The proportion has been steadily diminishing since the early 19th century, when Swedish was the mother tongue of approximately 15% of the population and considered a prestige language.

According to a 2007 statistical analysis made by Fjalar Finnäs, the population of the minority group is stable, and may even be increasing slightly in total numbers since more parents from bilingual families tend to register their children as Swedish speakers. It is estimated that 70% of bilingual families—that is, ones with one parent Finnish-speaking and the other Swedish-speaking—register their children as Swedish-speaking.

The Swedish term finlandssvensk (literally 'Finland's-Swede' or 'a Swede-of-Finland'), which is used by the group itself, does not have an established English translation. The Society of Swedish Authors in Finland and the main political institutions for the Swedish-speaking minority, such as the Swedish People's Party and Swedish Assembly of Finland, use the expression Swedish-speaking population of Finland, but Swedish-speaking NGOs often use the term Finland-Swedes.^{[full citation needed]}

The Research Institute for the Languages of Finland proposes Swedish-speaking Finns, Swedish Finns, or Finland-Swedes, the first of which is the sole form used on the institute's website. Other groups insist on the use of the more traditional English-language form, Finland-Swedes, as they view the labelling of them as Swedish-speaking Finns as a way of depriving them their ethnic affiliation, reducing it to merely a matter of language and deemphasizing the "Swedish part" of Finland-Swedish identity, i.e. their relations to Sweden.

Among Finnish Americans the term Swede-Finn became dominant before the independence of Finland in 1917, and the term has remained common to the present, despite later immigrants tending to use different terms such as Finland-Swede. The expressions Swedish-speaking Finns, Swedes of Finland, Finland Swedes, Finnish Swedes, and Swedish Finns are all used in academic literature.

The first Swedish arrivals in Finland have often been linked to the putative First Swedish Crusade (ca. 1150) which, if it took place, served to expand Christianity and annex Finnish territories to the kingdom of Sweden. Simultaneously the growth of population in Sweden, together with lack of land, resulted in Swedish settlements in Southern and Western coastal areas of Finland. The Second Swedish Crusade against the Tavastians in the 13th century extended the Swedish settlements to Nyland (Uusimaa). During the 14th century, the population expansion from Sweden proper increasingly took the form of organised mass migration: the new settlers came in large numbers in large ships from various parts of Sweden's Eastern coast, from Småland to Hälsingland. Their departure from Sweden proper to Finland was encouraged and organized by the Swedish authorities. The coast of Ostrobothnia received large-scale Swedish settlements during the 13th and 15th centuries, in parallel with events that resulted in Swedish expansion to Norrland and Estonia's coastal area.

The origin of the Swedish-speaking population in the territory that today constitutes Finland was a subject of fierce debate in the early 20th century as a part of Finland's language strife. Some Finland-Swede scholars, such as Ralf Saxén [fi; sv], Knut Hugo Pipping [fi; sv] and Tor Karsten, used place names in trying to prove that the Swedish settlement in Finland dates back to prehistoric times. Their views were opposed mainly by Heikki Ojansuu [fi; sv] in the 1920s.