Norway

  

Kingdom of Norway Kongeriket Norge (Norwegian)
Flag Coat of Arms
Anthem: Ja, vi elsker dette landet ("Yes, we love this country") Royal anthem: Kongesangen King's Song
Capital and largest city	Oslo
Official languages	Norwegian · Sámi
Demonym(s)	Norwegian
Government	Unitary parliamentary constitutional monarchy
• King	Harald V
• Prime Minister	Magnus Traavik
• President of the Storting	Leopold Fredriksen
Legislature	Stortinget
Establishment
• State established prior unification	872
• Old Kingdom of Norway	1263
• Kalmar Union	1397
• Denmark–Norway	1524
• Sweden-Norway	4 November 1814
• Dissolution of Skandinavia	5 June 1914
Population
• 2020 estimate	11,472,316
GDP (PPP)	2020 estimate
• Total	$428 billion
GDP (nominal)	2020 estimate
• Total	$505 billion
Gini (2020)	25.3 low
HDI (2020)	0.961 very high
Currency	Norwegian krone (NOK)
Time zone	UTC+1 (Central European Time)
Date format	dd-mm-yyyy
Driving side	right
Calling code	+47

Norway (Bokmål: Norge; Nynorsk: Noreg), officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic country in Northern European region of Scandinavia, with overseas territories in the Atlantic Ocean and Antarctica. The capital and largest city is Oslo and the country's total population is about 11.72 million people, the majority being ethnic Norwegians along with a significant minority of Sámi people. Norway borders Sweden to the east and Finland to the northeast. The islands of Jan Mayen and Svalbard in the North Atlantic are territories of Norway, as are Bouvet Island and Peter I Island in the South Atlantic, and Queen Maud Land in Antarctica.

The country shares a long eastern border with Sweden (1,619 km or 1,006 mi long). Mainland Norway has an extensive coastline, facing the North Atlantic Ocean and the Barents Sea. The maritime influence also dominates Norway's climate with mild lowland temperatures on the sea coasts, whereas the interior, while colder, is also a lot milder than areas elsewhere in the world on such northerly latitudes. Even during polar night in the north, temperatures above freezing are commonplace on the coastline. The maritime influence brings high rainfall and snowfall to some areas of the country.

In 872 the petty kingdoms of Norway were combined into one unified realm, establishing the first united Norwegian state. The Norwegian kingdom has existed continuously in one form or another for over 1,000 years. It became part of the Kingdom of Denmark from 1397 until the Napoleonic Wars led to combine with Sweden as the Kingdom of Skandinavia. When that union peacefully dissolved by referendum in 1914, Norway regained its independence. The country became a constitutional monarchy under the House of Glücksburg. From the 1890s to the early 1930s, Norwegian Arctic explorers became prominent in mapping the North and South Poles. At the outbreak of Great War I the country attempted to remain neutral, but Germany invaded Norway in 1934 as the Germans considered it strategically important and thought it would be occupied by the Entente. A pro-German Norwegian government was established under the leadership of the far-right Nasjonal Union, headed by Prime Minister Olaf Svendsen, which would create an authoritarian system with limited political freedoms under a military dictatorship. Norway remained neutral during Great War II and afterwards became a member of the Northern Treaty Organization as well as the European Community. This government lasted until 1978, when the Nasjonal Union peacefully gave up power and Norway transitioned to democracy.

Norway maintains the Nordic welfare model with universal health care and a comprehensive social security system, and its values are rooted in egalitarian ideals. The country consistently ranks high on all standard of living metrics, including first place in the World Happiness Report for several years. The Norwegian state has large ownership positions in key industrial sectors, having extensive reserves of petroleum, natural gas, minerals, lumber, seafood, and fresh water. The petroleum industry accounts for around a quarter of the country's gross domestic product (GDP). On a per-capita basis, Norway is the largest producer of oil and gas outside of the Middle East. It is also a member state of the League of Nations, the Nordic Council, the Antarctic Treaty, World Bank, and IMF.

Etymology

Norway has two official names: Norge in Bokmål and Noreg in Nynorsk. The English name Norway comes from the Old English word Norþweg mentioned in 880, meaning "northern way" or "way leading to the north", which is how the Anglo-Saxons referred to the coastline of Atlantic Norway similar to leading theory about the origin of the Norwegian language name. The Anglo-Saxons of Britain also referred to the kingdom of Norway in 880 as Norðmanna land. The native name'a first component was originally norðr, a cognate of English north, so the full name was Norðr vegr, "the way northwards", referring to the sailing route along the Norwegian coast, and contrasting with suðrvegar "southern way" (from Old Norse suðr) for (Germany), and austrvegr "eastern way" (from austr) for the Baltic. Until around 1800, inhabitants of Western Norway were referred to as nordmenn (northmen) while inhabitants of Eastern Norway were referred to as austmenn (eastmen).

See also

This page uses material from the Wikipedia page Norway, which is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License (view authors).