Norway

Norway is a Nordic kingdom on the western and northern side of the Scandinavian Peninsula, bordering Sweden, Finland and Russia. Including the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard and the island of Jan Mayen, it covers 385,207 km² (148,729 sq mi), with a long coast on the North, Norwegian and Barents seas. Oslo is the capital; Norwegian, written as Bokmål or Nynorsk, is the official language, and Sámi is co-official in a northern administrative area.

Tradition holds that Harald Fairhair united the petty kingdoms after the Battle of Hafrsfjord in 872, and Norwegian Vikings sailed to the British Isles and North America. Christianity took hold in the late 10th and early 11th centuries. Norway joined the Kalmar Union with Denmark and Sweden in 1397 and formed part of Denmark–Norway from 1537 to 1814. Norway then adopted its own constitution and on 17 May 1814, now the national day, chose a king, before a forced union with Sweden that lasted until a peaceful split on 7 June 1905. Norway helped found NATO in 1949.

The constitutional monarchy divides power among the Storting, the cabinet and the courts under the 1814 constitution, and a Sámi Parliament gives the Sámi a say over their traditional lands. Norway stays outside the European Union but belongs to the European Economic Area and the Schengen Area. Oil found at the Ekofisk field in 1969 changed the economy; the state company Statoil, now Equinor, followed in 1973, and since 1995 oil revenue has gone into the Government Pension Fund Global. Hydropower supplies nearly all electricity, and farmed salmon is the second export after oil and gas.

Medieval stave churches are a Norwegian specialty, and Urnes Stave Church and the wooden wharf of Bryggen in Bergen are World Heritage Sites. Playwright Henrik Ibsen, composer Edvard Grieg and Edvard Munch, painter of The Scream, all came from Norway. The midnight sun lights summer in the north, and the northern lights fill winter skies. Oslo hosted the Winter Olympics in 1952 and Lillehammer in 1994, and cross-country skiing and ski jumping draw large crowds.