Finningia is an old Latin

Latin

Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...

 name for Finland

Finland

Finland , officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country situated in the Fennoscandian region of Northern Europe. It is bordered by Sweden in the west, Norway in the north and Russia in the east, while Estonia lies to its south across the Gulf of Finland.Around 5.4 million people reside...

, along with Fennia

Fennia

Fennia can refer to:* An old Latin name for Finland, along with Finnia, Finningia and most often used Finlandia that originates from an old misconception that people known as Fenni in Tacitus' Germania were Finns...

, Finnia and most often used Finlandia. The name first appears in the work of Olaus Magnus

Olaus Magnus

Olaus Magnus was a Swedish ecclesiastic and writer, who did pioneering work for the interest of Nordic people. He was reported as born in October 1490 in Östergötland, and died on August 1, 1557. Magnus, Latin for the Swedish Stor “great”, is a Latin family name taken personally, and not a...

 from 1539, who placed Finningia olim regnum on the Scandinavian

Scandinavian Peninsula

The Scandinavian Peninsula is a peninsula in Northern Europe, which today covers Norway, Sweden, and most of northern Finland. Prior to the 17th and 18th centuries, large parts of the southern peninsula—including the core region of Scania from which the peninsula takes its name—were part of...

 map to indicate the unhistorical past kingdom of Finland. The name presumably is a misconception of Pliny the Elder

Pliny the Elder

Gaius Plinius Secundus , better known as Pliny the Elder, was a Roman author, naturalist, and natural philosopher, as well as naval and army commander of the early Roman Empire, and personal friend of the emperor Vespasian...

's Aeningia

Aeningia

Aeningia is an island mentioned in the Natural History by Pliny the Elder, written in the 1s century CE. According to Pliny, Aeningia was inhabited by Sarmatians , Veneti , Scirii and Hirri, bordering Vistula...

that probably did not mean Finland but the area of the present-day Baltic States

Baltic states

The term Baltic states refers to the Baltic territories which gained independence from the Russian Empire in the wake of World War I: primarily the contiguous trio of Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania ; Finland also fell within the scope of the term after initially gaining independence in the 1920s.The...

. Aeningia seems to have first been confused with Finland by Jacob Ziegler

Jacob Ziegler

The humanist and theologian Jacob Ziegler of Landau, was an itinerant scholar of geography and cartographer, who lived a wandering life in Europe...

in 1532.