The paper takes up an effort of analyzing the origin and evolution of the local self-government in Finland in the context of the essence and main idea of the concept of self-governing known in the Nordic legal and political culture. Worth underlining is the fact, that the concept comes from a different origin than in the majority of the European states, is rather original in its meaning and characteristic only for this part of the continent. Therefore, the work aims at analyzing the development of the local authority based on self-government at the Finnish lands, which has been made in the context of historical circumstances determining it, i.e. lack of Finland’s statehood for many centuries, while it had been dominated by the Swedes and later included into the Russian Empire, and when it afterwards received its independence in 1917, it enabled the Finns developing and putting into life an idea of a state, in which its tasks for the benefit of delivering the basic needs of the society would be exercised mainly by the local community authorities. Modernly, the local self-government in Finland is organized on one grade and functions only on a commune level. Nevertheless, the research on this dynamically developing institution cannot be made without relating to the permanently changing in these historical circumstances territorial structure and administrative division of the state, which have undoubtedly had their influence on the development of the local self-government on a commune level and are the subject of the work.