Rajaviiva

Rajaviiva is a Finnish term that literally means a border line or demarcation line. In everyday language and professional contexts it refers to a line that marks the boundary between two areas, such as territories, jurisdictions, or administrative units. The term is commonly used in geography, cartography, and public documents to describe where one region ends and another begins.

In maps and geographic information systems (GIS), rajaviiva is typically represented as a polyline that indicates the edge of a boundary. These lines can delineate national borders, regional or municipal borders, cadastral divisions, or other legally defined separations. Attributes associated with a rajaviiva in GIS may include the type of boundary, the date of delimitation, source documents, and status (active, disputed, or historical). Accurate rajaviivat are important for legal clarity, planning, and interjurisdictional coordination.

The term also appears in a broader, figurative sense to describe any clearly defined limit or threshold, such as policy boundaries, jurisdictional scopes, or social and cultural divides. While rajaviiva is most common in Finnish-language texts and data, equivalent concepts exist in many languages and systems for describing boundaries and borders.

See also: border, boundary, demarcation line, frontier, administrative division, border dispute, cadastral map.