Norway

Norway, or officially the Kingdom of Norway (Norwegian: Kongeriket Norge or Kongeriket Noreg) is a Nordic country on the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, bordering Sweden, Finland and Russia. more...

Norway's extensive coastline along the North Atlantic Ocean is home to its famous fjords. The country has a very elongated shape. The Kingdom of Norway also includes the Arctic island territories of Svalbard and Jan Mayen. The Norwegian sovereignty on Svalbard is based on the Svalbard Treaty, but this does not apply to Jan Mayen. Bouvet Island in the South Atlantic Ocean and a claim for Peter I Island in the South Pacific Ocean are also external dependencies, but these are not part of the Kingdom. Additionally, Norway has a claim on Dronning Maud Land in Antarctica.

History

In the 9th century Norway consisted of a number of petty kingdoms. According to tradition, Harald Fairhair gathered the small kingdoms into one and in 872 with the battle of Hafrsfjord, he became the first king of a united Norway.

The Viking age (8th to 11th centuries) was one of national unification and expansion. The Norwegians settled on Iceland, the Faroe Islands, Greenland and parts of the British Islands and attempted to settle at L'Anse aux Meadows in Newfoundland, Canada (it is the Vinland of The Saga of Eric the Red). Norwegians founded the modern day Irish cities of Dublin, Cork, Limerick and Waterford and captured the Anglo-Saxon city of Eoforwic renaming it Jorvik, today known as York. The Norwegian Rollo invaded and was ceded Normandy by the West Frankish king Charles the Simple in 911. Rollo's great-great-great-grandson William the Conqueror successfully invaded and conquered England in 1066.

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