Some 96 percent of new Finnish nationals retain their former citizenship.

Axar.az reports citing Sputnik.

More than 9,000 people were granted Finnish citizenship in 2016, making it the largest number since the European country gained independence in 1917, the Statistics Finland agency said in a statement.

According to the statement, the citizenship was granted to 4,914 women with an average age of 28.4 years and to 4,461 men with an average age of 26.4 years.

The statement added that 96 percent of new Finnish nationals retained their former citizenship, bringing a total number of the Finnish nationals with dual citizenship to 104,997.

Finland is quite stable and wealthy European state that makes its nationality quite attractive country both for refugees from crisis-torn countries, such as Afghanistan, Iraq and Somalia as well as for people from more well-off countries as Russia, Sweden and the United States.