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Norway

About Norway

Norway (Norwegian: Norge (bokmål) or Noreg (nynorsk)), officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a country and constitutional monarchy in Northern Europe that occupies the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula. It is bordered by Sweden, Finland, and Russia. The country's extensive coastline along the North Atlantic Ocean is home to its famous fjords.

The Kingdom of Norway also includes the Arctic island territories of Svalbard and Jan Mayen. Norwegian sovereignty over Svalbard is based upon the Svalbard Treaty, but that treaty does not apply to Jan Mayen. Bouvet Island in the South Atlantic Ocean and Peter I Island and Queen Maud Land in Antarctica are external dependencies, but those three entities do not form part of the kingdom.

Since World War II, Norway has experienced rapid economic growth, and is now amongst the wealthiest countries in the world, with a fully developed welfare system. This economic progress is caused in part by the development of oil and gas reserves off its coast. Norway was ranked highest of all countries in human development from 2001 to 2006, and tied in the first place with fellow Nordic country Iceland in 2007. It also rated the most peaceful country in the world in a 2007 survey by Global Peace Index. It is a founding member of NATO.

Name

Many etymologists believe the country's name comes from the North Germanic languages and that it means "the northern route" (the way to the north), which in Old Norse would be nord veg or *norð vegri.[citation needed] The Old Norse name for Norway was Nóreegr, in Anglo-Saxon Norþ weg, and in mediaeval Latin Nhorvegia. The present name of Norway is Norge in Norwegian bokmål and Noreg in Norwegian nynorsk. The Old Norse and nynorsk forms are quite similar to an ancient Sami word that means "along the coast" or "along the sea"  »” realized as nuorrek in contemporary Lule Sami. The presence of the archaic prosecutive case marker (sometimes also called prolative in Finno-Ugric language research) supports the claim that the Sami word is indigenous and not a borrowing from North Germanic languages.

In the other native languages of Norway, the name is: Northern Sami: Norga; Lule Sami: Vuodna; Southern Sami: Nøørje; Finnish/Kven: Norja. The official name is: Norwegian: Kongeriket Norge (bokmål), Kongeriket Noreg (nynorsk); Other names are; Northern Sami: Norgga gonagasriika; Lule Sami: Vuona gånågisrijkka; Southern Sami: Nøørjen gånkarijhke; Finnish/Kven: Norjan kuningaskunta.

History

Archaeological finds indicate that there were people in Norway as early as the 10th millennium BC (12,000 years ago). Archaeological evidence suggests that the core of the oldest populations colonising Scandinavia 11 000 - 12 000 thousand years ago came from the present Germany.

In the 9th century, it seems that Norway consisted of a number of petty kingdoms. According to tradition, Harald Fairhair gathered the small kingdoms into one in 872 AD with the Battle of Hafrsfjord. He became the first king of a united Norway.

The Viking age (8th to 11th centuries) was one of unification and expansion. Many Norwegians left the country to live in Iceland, the Faroe Islands, Greenland and parts of Britain and Ireland. People of Norwegian origin founded the modern-day Irish cities of Limerick, Dublin, and Waterford and established trading communities near the Celtic settlements of Cork and Dublin[citation needed] which later became Ireland's two most important cities. The spread of Christianity in Norway in this period is in large part attributed to the missionary kings Olav Tryggvasson (995-1000) and St. Olav (1015-1028), although Haakon the Good was Norway's first Christian king. Norse traditions were slowly replaced during the 9th and 10th centuries.

In 1349, the Black Death killed between 40% and 50% of the Norwegian population, causing a decline in both society and economics. Ostensibly, royal politics at the time resulted in several personal unions between the Nordic countries, eventually bringing the thrones of Norway, Denmark, and Sweden under the control of Queen Margrethe I of Denmark when the country entered into the Kalmar Union with Denmark and Sweden. Although Sweden finally broke out of the union in 1523, Norway remained in the union with Denmark for 434 years until 1814. During the national romanticism of the 19th century, this period was by some referred to as the "400-Year Night", since all of the kingdom's royal, intellectual, and administrative power was centred in Copenhagen, Denmark. Other factors also contributed to Norway's decline in this period. With the introduction of Protestantism in 1537, the archbishopric in Trondheim was dissolved, and the church's incomes were distributed to the court in Copenhagen in Denmark instead. Norway lost the steady stream of pilgrims to the relics of St. Olav at the Nidaros shrine, and with them, much of the contact with cultural and economic life in the rest of Europe. Additionally, Norway saw its land area decrease in the 17th century with the loss of the provinces Båhuslen, Jemtland, and Herjedalen to Sweden, as a result of the wars between Denmark-Norway and Sweden.

After Denmark-Norway was attacked by Great Britain, it entered into an alliance with Napoleon, and in 1814 found itself on the losing side in the Napoleonic Wars, resulting in dire conditions and mass starvation in 1812. The Dano-Norwegian Oldenburg king was forced to cede Norway to the king of Sweden, while the old Norwegian provinces of Iceland, Greenland and the Faroe Islands remained with the Danish crown. Norway took this opportunity to declare independence, adopted a constitution based on American and French models, and elected the Danish crown prince Christian Fredrik as king on May 17, 1814. This caused a war to break out between Sweden and Norway, as the Swedes had been promised the territory of Norway as a reward for aiding the victors of the Napoleonic wars. However, Sweden's military was not strong enough to defeat the Norwegian forces outright and instead of gaining Norway as a territory, Norway agreed to enter a personal union with Sweden. Under this arrangement, Norway kept its liberal constitution and independent institutions (including its own military forces), except for the foreign service. See also Norway in 1814.

This period also saw the rise of the Norwegian romantic nationalism cultural movement, as Norwegians sought to define and express a distinct national character. The movement covered all branches of culture, including literature (Henrik Wergeland, Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson, Peter Christen Asbjørnsen, Jørgen Moe, Henrik Ibsen), painting (Hans Gude, Adolph Tidemand), music (Edvard Grieg), and even language policy, where attempts to define a native written language for Norway led to today's two official written forms for Norwegian: Bokmål and Nynorsk.

Christian Michelsen, a Norwegian shipping magnate and statesman, was Prime Minister of Norway from 1905 to 1907. Michelsen is most known for his central role in the peaceful separation of Norway from Sweden on June 7, 1905. Norway's growing dissatisfaction with the union with Sweden during the late 19th century ended in the dissolution of the union and after a national referendum confirmed the people's preference for a monarchy over a republic, the Norwegian government offered the throne of Norway to the Danish Prince Carl and Parliament unanimously elected him king. He took the name of Haakon VII, after the medieval kings of independent Norway. In 1898, all men were granted universal suffrage, followed by all women in 1913.

During World War I, Norway was a neutral country. Norway also claimed neutrality during World War II, but was invaded by German forces on April 9, 1940.

Norway was unprepared for the German surprise attack, but military resistance continued for two months, longer than any country invaded by the Germans, except the Soviet Union. During the Norwegian Campaign, the Kriegsmarine lost many ships including the cruiser Blücher. The battles of Vinjesvingen and Hegra eventually became the last strongholds of Norwegian resistance in southern Norway in May, while the armed forces in the north launched an offensive against the German forces in the Battles of Narvik, until they were forced to surrender on June 10 after losing allied help following the fall of France. King Haakon and the Norwegian government continued the fight from exile in Rotherhithe, London. On the day of the invasion, the collaborative leader of the small National-Socialist party Nasjonal Samling  »” Vidkun Quisling  »” tried to seize power, but was forced by the German occupiers to step aside. Real power was wielded by the leader of the German occupation authority, Reichskommissar Josef Terboven. Quisling, as minister president, later formed a collaborationist government under German control. Facilities in Norway to manufacture heavy water, a key requirement to produce nuclear weapons, were eventually abandoned by the Germans after multiple efforts to destroy the Vemork facility by Norwegians, British, and Americans. During the five years of Nazi occupation, Norwegians built a resistance movement which fought the German occupation forces with both armed resistance and civil disobedience. More important to the Allied war effort, however, was the role of the Norwegian merchant navy. At the time of the invasion, Norway had the fourth largest merchant marine in the world. It was led by the Norwegian shipping company Nortraship under the Allies throughout the war and took part in every war operation from the evacuation of Dunkirk to the Normandy landings.

Following the war, the Social Democrats came to power and ruled the country for much of the cold war. Norway joined NATO in 1949, and became a close ally of the United States. Two plebiscites to join the European Union (called the European Community in 1972) failed by narrow margins in 1972 and 1994. Large reserves of petroleum and natural gas were discovered in the 1960s, which led to a continuing boom in the economy.

Geography, climate and environment

Norway comprises the western part of Scandinavia in Northern Europe. The rugged coastline, broken by huge fjords and thousands of islands, stretches over 2,500 km as the crow flies and over 83,000 km including the fjords and islands. Norway shares a 2,542 km land border with Sweden, Finland, and Russia to the east. To the west and south, Norway is bordered by the Norwegian Sea, the North Sea, and Skagerak. The Barents Sea washes on Norway's northern coasts.

At 385,155 km² (including Jan Mayen, Svalbard), Norway is slightly larger than Germany, but much of the country is dominated by mountainous or high terrain, with a great variety of natural features caused by prehistoric glaciers and varied topography. The most noticeable of these are the fjords: deep grooves cut into the land flooded by the sea following the end of the Ice Age. The longest is Sognefjorden. Norway also contains many glaciers and waterfalls.