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The Finnish organization was very different from that of its counterparts in the rest of the Nordic region.

The sentence above is an example sentence I came across, I'd like to know why it has 'that of' before its counterpart because from the viewpoint of understanding, only its counterparts is already able to express the meaning of this sentence clearly, adding the that of make the sentence more confusing.

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  • I personally don't see the confusion, it's some sort of "formal" way to speak, so to speak. It's true that without it the sentence can be understood perfectly fine, but it also doesn't change the meaning
    – Raestloz
    Commented Jun 8, 2020 at 10:27

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It is possible that "counterparts" refers to "Finland", and "that of" refers to "organization".

"The Finnish organization was very different from the corresponding organizations in the other nations of the Nordic region"

but it sounds as though the writer was trying for increased formality and an "official" sounding statement, and made a mistake.

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