Plurilingual countries face the problem of how widely to provide governmental services in each of their official langs. Both Finland & Canada have adopted the principle of establishing bilingual districts where official language minorities are large enough to justify them, & of adjusting the boundaries of these districts in accordance with language indicators in the census. The Finnish system is briefly described, & the so far unsuccessful attempt to implement a similar system in Canada, following the passage of the federal Official Languages Act of 1969 is analyzed. HA