This article is about the European country. For other uses, see Norway (disambiguation).
"Noruega" redirects here. It is not to be confused with Noriega.
Kingdom of Norway
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Anthem:
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Location of the Kingdom of Norway and its integral overseas areas and dependencies: Svalbard, Jan Mayen,Bouvet Island, Peter I Island and Queen Maud Land
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| Capital and largest city | Oslo 59°56′N 10°41′E | |||||
| Official languages | Norwegian (Bokmål / Nynorsk) | |||||
| Recognised regional languages | ||||||
| Writing system | Latin (Dano-Norwegian alphabet) | |||||
| Ethnic groups |
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| Religion | Church of Norway[3][4][5][6][7] | |||||
| Demonym | Norwegian Norwegian: Nordmann | |||||
| Government | Unitaryparliamentaryconstitutional monarchy | |||||
| • | Monarch | Harald V | ||||
| • | Prime Minister | Erna Solberg | ||||
| • | President of theStorting | Olaf Michael Thommessen | ||||
| • | Chief Justice | Toril Marie Øie | ||||
| Legislature | Storting | |||||
| History | ||||||
| • | Establishment prior unification | 872 | ||||
| • | Norwegian Empire(Greatest indep. extent) | 1263 | ||||
| • | Kalmar Union | 1397 | ||||
| • | Denmark-Norway | 1524 | ||||
| • | Self-proclaimed independent | 25 February 1814 | ||||
| • | Constitution | 17 May 1814 | ||||
| • | Sweden-Norway | 4 November 1814 | ||||
| • | Dissolution of Sweden-Norway | 7 June 1905 | ||||
| • | German occupation | 9 April 1940 | ||||
| • | Reichskommissariat Norwegen | 24 April 1940 | ||||
| • | Quisling regime | 1 February 1942 | ||||
| • | Restoration from German occupation | 8 May 1945 | ||||
| Area | ||||||
| • | Total | 385,178[8] km2(61sta) 148,718 sq mi | ||||
| • | Water (%) | 5.2b | ||||
| Population | ||||||
| • | 2016 estimate | 5,214,900[9] | ||||
| • | 2015 census | 5,214,890[10] | ||||
| • | Density | 15.5/km2 (213th) 35/sq mi | ||||
| GDP (PPP) | 2016 estimate | |||||
| • | Total | $364.685 billion[11](46th) | ||||
| • | Per capita | $69,296[11] (4th) | ||||
| GDP (nominal) | 2016 estimate | |||||
| • | Total | $376.268 billion[11](22nd) | ||||
| • | Per capita | $71,497[11] (3rd) | ||||
| Gini (2014) |  23.5[12]low · 1st | |||||
| HDI (2014) |  0.944[13]very high · 1st | |||||
| Currency | Norwegian krone(NOK) | |||||
| Time zone | CET (UTC+1) | |||||
| • | Summer (DST) | CEST (UTC+2) | ||||
| Date format | dd.mm.yyyy | |||||
| Drives on the | right | |||||
| Calling code | +47 | |||||
| ISO 3166 code | NO | |||||
| Internet TLD | .noc | |||||
| a. | Includes Svalbard and Jan Mayen. (Without these two areas, the area of Norway is 323,802 km2, placing it 67th in the world.[14]) | |||||
| b. | This percentage is for the mainland, Svalbard, and Jan Mayen. This percentage counts glaciers as "land". It's calculated as 19,940.14/(365,246.17+19,940.14).[8] | |||||
| c. | Two more TLDs have been assigned, but are not used: .sj for Svalbard and Jan Mayen; .bv forBouvet Island. | |||||
Norway (
i/ˈnɔːrweɪ/ nawr-way; Norwegian: 
Norge (Bokmål) or Noreg(Nynorsk)), officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a sovereign and unitarymonarchy whose territory comprises the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula plus the island Jan Mayen and the archipelago of Svalbard.[note 1]The Antarctic Peter I Island and the sub-Antarctic Bouvet Island are dependent territories and thus not considered part of the Kingdom. Norway also lays claim to a section of Antarctica known as Queen Maud Land. Until 1814, the Kingdom included the Faroe Islands (since 1035), Greenland (1261), andIceland (1262). It also included Shetland and Orkney until 1468.
i/ˈnɔːrweɪ/ nawr-way; Norwegian: Norge (Bokmål) or Noreg(Nynorsk)), officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a sovereign and unitarymonarchy whose territory comprises the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula plus the island Jan Mayen and the archipelago of Svalbard.[note 1]The Antarctic Peter I Island and the sub-Antarctic Bouvet Island are dependent territories and thus not considered part of the Kingdom. Norway also lays claim to a section of Antarctica known as Queen Maud Land. Until 1814, the Kingdom included the Faroe Islands (since 1035), Greenland (1261), andIceland (1262). It also included Shetland and Orkney until 1468.
Norway has a total area of 385,252 square kilometres (148,747 sq mi) and a population of 5,213,985 (May 2016).[16] The country shares a long eastern border with Sweden (1,619 km or 1,006 mi long). Norway is bordered byFinland and Russia to the north-east, and the Skagerrak Strait to the south, with Denmark on the other side. Norway has an extensive coastline, facing the North Atlantic Ocean and the Barents Sea.
King Harald V of the Dano-German House of Glücksburg is the current King of Norway. Erna Solberg became Prime Minister in 2013, replacing Jens Stoltenberg. A constitutional monarchy, Norway divides state power between the Parliament, the Cabinet, and the Supreme Court, as determined by the1814 Constitution. The Kingdom is established as a merger of several petty kingdoms. By the traditional count from the year 872 the Kingdom has existed continuously for 1,144 years, and the list of Norwegian monarchs includes over sixty kings and earls.
Norway has both administrative and political subdivisions on two levels:counties and municipalities. The Sámi people have a certain amount of self-determination and influence over traditional territories through the Sámi Parliament and the Finnmark Act. Norway maintains close ties with theEuropean Union and the United States. Norway is a founding member of theUnited Nations, NATO, the Council of Europe, the Antarctic Treaty and theNordic Council; a member of the European Economic Area, the WTO and theOECD; and is also a part of the Schengen Area.
The country maintains a combination of market economy and a Nordic welfare model with universal health care and a comprehensive social security system. Norway has extensive reserves of petroleum, natural gas, minerals, lumber,seafood, fresh water, and hydropower. The petroleum industry accounts for around a quarter of the country's gross domestic product (GDP).[17] On a per-capita basis, Norway is the world's largest producer of oil and natural gas outside the Middle East.[18][19]
The country has the fourth-highest per capita income in the world on the World Bank and IMF lists.[20] On the CIA's GDP (PPP) per capita list (2015 estimate) which includes territories and some regions, Norway ranks as number eleven.[21] From 2001 to 2006,[22] and then again from 2009 to 2015, Norway had the highest Human Development Index ranking in the world.[13][23][24][25]Norway has topped the Legatum Prosperity Index for seven years in a row as of 2015.[26] Norway also ranks first on the OECD Better Life Index, the Index of Public Integrity, and the Democracy Index.[27]
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[hide]Etymology[edit]
Norway has two official names: Noreg in Nynorsk(Old Norse: Noregr) andNorge in Bokmål (Old Norse: Noregi, dative ofNoregr).
The name Norway comes from the Old English word Norðrveg(r)mentioned in 880, meaning "northern way" or "way leading to the north", which the Anglo-Saxon named the coastline of atlantic Norway.[28][29] In contrasting with suðrvegar "southern way" forGermany, and austrvegr "eastern way" for the Baltic.[citation needed] The Anglo-Saxon of Britain also referred the kingdom of Norway in 880 as Norðmanna land.[28][29]
Philology professor Michael Schulte, also earlier by Magnus Olsen mentioned that the Old Norse names Nuruiak, Nuriki(Nur- :narrow, -riki :kingdom) and later Noregr (Nore- :narrow -gr :way), given by the innhabitats of Norway themselves, refers to the inner-archipelago sailing route of southwestern Norway.[28][29] This was the home area of Harald Fairhair, the first king of Norway, and that because of him, the name was extended to the entire country.[citation needed] The newer interpretation of the syllable is Norvegr, where nor(ve)- means narrow (Nynorsk: norve) and -(ve)gr (Nynorsk: veg) means way that refers to the sailing routes through the straits of Norway.[28][29] The old meaning of the word is interpreted as "The narrow way through the strait".[28][29] Nore is still used in placenames like example the village of Nore and lake Norefjorden inBuskerud county, and has still the same meaning.[28][29]
In a Latin manuscript of 849, the name Northuagia is mentioned, while a French chronicle of c. 900 uses the namesNorthwegia and Norwegia.[30] When Ohthere of Hålogaland visited King Alfred the Great in England in the end of the 9th century, the land was called Norðwegr (lit. Northway) and norðmanna land (lit. Northmen's land).[30]
Old Norse norðmaðr was Latinized as Nortmannus in the 9th century to mean "Norseman" and also "Viking", giving rise to the name of the Normans.[31] After Norway had become Christian, Noregr and Noregi had become the most common forms, but during the 15th century the newer forms Noreg(h) and Norg(h)e, found in medieval Icelandic manuscripts,[citation needed]took over and have survived until modern day.
The Old Norse name Noregr (narrow strait) was borrowed into Old English, and was according to language student and activist Klaus Johan Myrvoll, first revealed by philologist Niels Halvorsen Trønnes in 1847, as misinterpreted for Norðwegand Norweg (northern way), giving rise to modern Norway by regular development via Middle English Norwei andNorwey.[28][29] The letter ð was not used in any Old Norse spellings of the name Norway, and was wrongly added into the English word, changing the meaning to North (Old English: Norðr, Norwegian: Nord), who also influenced the old Latin names as Nortwegia and Northmannia with the same spelling mistake.[28][29]
The adjective Norwegian, on the other hand, recorded from c. 1600, is derived from the latinization of the name asNorwegia.[citation needed] In the adjective Norwegian, the Old English spelling '-weg' has survived.
History[edit]
Main articles: History of Norway and History of Scandinavia
Prehistory[edit]
Main article: Scandinavian prehistory
The first inhabitants were the Ahrensburg culture (11th to 10th millennia BC), which was a late Upper Paleolithic culture during the Younger Dryas, the last period of cold at the end of the Weichsel glaciation. The culture is named after the village ofAhrensburg, 25 km (15.53 mi) north-east of Hamburg in the German state of Schleswig-Holstein, where wooden arrow shafts and clubs have been excavated.[32]The earliest traces of human occupation in Norway are found along the coast, where the huge ice shelf of the last ice age first melted between 11,000 and 8,000 BC. The oldest finds are stone tools dating from 9,500 to 6,000 BC, discovered in Finnmark(Komsa culture) in the north and Rogaland (Fosna culture) in the south-west. However, theories about two altogether different cultures (the Komsa culture north of the Arctic Circle being one and the Fosna culture from Trøndelag to Oslo Fjordbeing the other) were rendered obsolete in the 1970s.
More recent finds along the entire coast revealed to archaeologists that the difference between the two can simply be ascribed to different types of tools and not to different cultures. Coastal fauna provided a means of livelihood for fishermen and hunters, who may have made their way along the southern coast about 10,000 BC when the interior was still covered with ice. It is now thought that these so-called "Arctic" peoples came from the south and followed the coast northward considerably later.
In the southern part of the country are dwelling sites dating from about 5,000 BC. Finds from these sites give a clearer idea of the life of the hunting and fishing peoples. The implements vary in shape and mostly are made of different kinds of stone; those of later periods are more skilfully made. Rock carvings (i.e. petroglyphs) have been found, usually near hunting and fishing grounds. They represent game such as deer, reindeer, elk, bears, birds, seals, whales, and fish (especiallysalmon and halibut), all of which were vital to the way of life of the coastal peoples. The carvings at Alta in Finnmark, the largest in Scandinavia, were made at sea level from 4,200 to 500 BC and mark the progression of the land as the sea rose after the last ice age ended (Rock carvings at Alta).
Bronze Age[edit]
Main article: Nordic Bronze Age
Between 3000 and 2500 BC new settlers (Corded Ware culture) arrived ineastern Norway. They were Indo-European farmers who grew grain and keptcows and sheep. The hunting-fishing population of the west coast was also gradually replaced by farmers, though hunting and fishing remained useful secondary means of livelihood.
From about 1500 BC bronze was gradually introduced, but the use of stone implements continued; Norway had few riches to barter for bronze goods, and the few finds consist mostly of elaborate weapons and brooches that only chieftains could afford. Huge burial cairns built close to the sea as far north asHarstad and also inland in the south are characteristic of this period. The motifs of the rock carvings differ from those typical of the Stone Age. Representations of the Sun, animals, trees, weapons, ships, and people are all strongly stylised.
Thousands of rock carvings from this period depict ships, and the large stone burial monuments known as stone ships, suggest that ships and seafaring played an important role in the culture at large. The depicted ships, most likely represent sewn plank built canoes used for warfare, fishing and trade. These ship types may have their origin as far back as the neolithic period and they continue into the Pre-Roman Iron Age, as exemplified by the Hjortspring boat.[33]
Iron Age[edit]
Main article: Iron Age Scandinavia
Little has been found dating from the early Iron Age (the last 500 years BC). The dead were cremated, and their graves contain few burial goods. During the first four centuries AD the people of Norway were in contact with Roman-occupied Gaul. About 70 Roman bronze cauldrons, often used as burial urns, have been found. Contact with the civilised countries farther south brought a knowledge of runes; the oldest known Norwegian runic inscription dates from the 3rd century. At this time the amount of settled area in the country increased, a development that can be traced by coordinated studies oftopography, archaeology, and place-names. The oldest root names, such as nes, vik, and bø ("cape," "bay," and "farm"), are of great antiquity, dating perhaps from the Bronze Age, whereas the earliest of the groups of compound names with the suffixes vin ("meadow") or heim ("settlement"), as in Bjorgvin (Bergen) or Saeheim (Seim), usually date from the 1st century AD.
Archaeologists first made the decision to divide the Iron Age of Northern Europe into distinct pre-Roman and Roman Iron Ages after Emil Vedel unearthed a number of Iron Age artifacts in 1866 on the island of Bornholm.[34] They did not exhibit the same permeating Roman influence seen in most other artifacts from the early centuries AD, indicating that parts ofnorthern Europe had not yet come into contact with the Romans at the beginning of the Iron Age.
Migration period[edit]
Main article: Migration period
See also: Petty kingdoms of Norway
The destruction of the Western Roman Empire by the Germanic peoples in the 5th centuryis characterised by rich finds, including tribal chiefs' graves containing magnificent weapons and gold objects.[citation needed] Hill forts were built on precipitous rocks for defence. Excavation has revealed stone foundations of farmhouses 18 to 27 metres (59 to 89 ft) long—one even 46 metres (151 feet) long—the roofs of which were supported on wooden posts. These houses were family homesteads where several generations lived together, with people and cattle under one roof.[citation needed]
These states were based on either clans or tribes (e.g., the Horder of Hordaland in western Norway). By the 9th century, each of these small states had things (local or regional assemblies),[citation needed] for negotiating and settling disputes. The thing meeting places, each eventually with a hörgr (open-air sanctuary) or a heathen hof (temple; literally "hill"), were usually situated on the oldest and best farms, which belonged to the chieftains and wealthiest farmers. The regional things united to form even larger units: assemblies of deputy yeomen from several regions. In this way, the lagting (assemblies for negotiations and lawmaking) developed. The Gulating had its meeting place by Sognefjord and may have been the centre of an aristocratic confederation[citation needed]along the western fjords and islands called the Gulatingslag. The Frostating was the assembly for the leaders in theTrondheimsfjord area; the Earls of Lade, near Trondheim, seem to have enlarged the Frostatingslag by adding the coastland from Romsdalsfjord to Lofoten.[citation needed]
Viking Age[edit]
Main article: Viking Age
See also: Unification of Norway and Hereditary Kingdom of Norway
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From the 8th to the 10th century, the wider Scandinavian region was the source of Vikings. The looting of the monastery at Lindisfarne in Northeast England in 793 byNorse people has long been regarded as the event which marked the beginning of the Viking Age.[35] This age was characterised by expansion and emigration by Vikingseafarers. They colonised, raided, and traded in all parts of Europe. Norwegian Viking explorers first discovered Icelandby accident in the 9th century when heading for the Faroe Islands, and eventually came across Vinland, known today as Newfoundland, in Canada. The Vikings from Norway were most active in the northern and western British Isles and eastern North America isles.
According to tradition, Harald Fairhair unified them into one in 872 after the Battle of Hafrsfjord in Stavanger, thus becoming the first king of a united Norway.[36] Harald's realm was mainly a South Norwegian coastal state. Fairhair ruled with a strong hand and according to the sagas, many Norwegians left the country to live in Iceland, the Faroe Islands, Greenland, and parts of Britain and Ireland. The modern-day Irish cities of Dublin, Limerick and Waterford were founded by Norwegian settlers.[37]
Norse traditions were slowly replaced by Christian ones in the late 10th and early 11th centuries. This is largely attributed to the missionary kings Olav Tryggvasson and St. Olav. Haakon the Good was Norway's first Christian king, in the mid-10th century, though his attempt to introduce the religion was rejected. Born sometime in between 963–969, Olav Tryggvasson set off raiding in England with 390 ships. He attacked London during this raiding. Arriving back in Norway in 995, Olav landed in Moster. There he built a church which became the first Christian church ever built in Norway. From Moster, Olav sailed north to Trondheim where he was proclaimed King of Norway by the Eyrathing in 995.[38]
Feudalism never really developed in Norway or Sweden, as it did in the rest of Europe. However, the administration of government took on a very conservative feudal character. The Hanseatic League forced the royalty to cede to them greater and greater concessions over foreign trade and the economy. The League had this hold over the royalty because of the loans the Hansa had made to the royalty and the large debt the kings were carrying. The League's monopolistic control over the economy of Norway put pressure on all classes, especially the peasantry, to the degree that no real burgher class existed in Norway.[39]
