659/ 10/ pg 659, Question 10 Writing

Subrosian
Tue, 04 Aug 2009 23:21:08 +0000

Oh hey, it just made sense to me right now.

The word “so” isn’t comparing anything, nor is it a conjunction. “So” is used as a follow-up to another previous sentence not shown.
The sentence can be reconstructed like this, a more familiar format:
So Finland has provided a large number of famous architects, just as Ireland has produced many famous writers and the Netherlands an abundance of famous painters.

In the original sentence, the independent and dependent clauses were flipped around.