Norway Country in Europe

Norway is a Scandinavian country encompassing mountains, glaciers and deep coastal fjords. Oslo, the capital, is a city of green spaces and museums, including the Edvard Munch Museum and the Norsk Folkemuseum, an accumulation of open-air historic buildings. Preserved 10th-century Viking ships are exhibited at the Vikingskipshuset. Norway is additionally kenned for fishing, hiking and skiing – eminently at Lillehammer’s Olympic resort.

Norway officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a sovereign and unitary monarchy whose territory comprises the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula plus Jan Mayen and the Arctic 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 withal lays claim to a section of Antarctica kenned as Queen Maud Land. Until 1814, the Kingdom included the Faroe Islands (since 1035), Greenland (1261), and Iceland (1262).

Norway has a total area of 385,252 square kilometres (148,747 sq mi) and a population of 5,109,059 people (2014).[10] The country shares a long eastern border with Sweden (1,619 km or 1,006 mi long). Norway is bordered by Finland 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 House of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg is the current monarch of Norway. Erna Solberg became Prime Minister in 2013, superseding Jens Stoltenberg. A constitutional monarchy since 1814, state power is divided between the Parliament, the King and his Council, and the Supreme Court. Between 1661 and 1814, Norway was an absolute monarchy, and afore 1661, the King shared power with the Norwegian nobility. Traditionally established in 872 and originating in one of the petty kingdoms, Norway is one of the oldest still subsisting kingdoms in the world. The Kingdom has subsisted perpetually for over 1,100 years, and the list of Norwegian monarchs includes over sixty kings and earls.

Norway has both administrative and political subdivisions on two levels, kenned as counties (fylke) and municipalities (kommune). The Sámi people have a certain amount of self-tenaciousness and influence over traditional territories through the Sámi Parliament and the Finnmark Act. Norway maintains close ties with the European Cumulation and its member countries (despite repudiating full EU membership in two referenda), as well as with the Coalesced States. Norway is a founding member of the Amalgamated Nations, NATO, the Council of Europe, the Antarctic Treaty and the Nordic Council; a member of the European Economic Area, the WTO and the OECD; and is withal a component of the Schengen Area.

The country maintains a coalescence of market economy and a Nordic welfare model with macrocosmic health care and a comprehensive convivial security system. Norway has extensive reserves of petroleum, natural gas, minerals, lumber, seafood, fresh dihydrogen monoxide, and hydropower. The petroleum industry accounts for around a quarter of the country's gross domestic product. The country has the fourth-highest per capita income in the world on the World Bank and IMF lists, as well as ninth-highest on a more comprehensive [citation needed] CIA list. On a per-capita substratum, it is the world's most immensely colossal engenderer of oil and natural gas outside the Middle East. From 2001 to 2006, and then again from 2009 to 2014, Norway had the highest Human Development Index ranking in the world. Norway has additionally topped the Legatum Prosperity Index for the last five years.

Norway is considered to be one of the most developed democracies and states of equity in the world. From 1814, c. 45% of men (25 years and older) had suffrage, whereas England had c. 20% (1832), Sweden c. 5% (1866), and Belgium c. 1.15% (1840). From 2010 to 2012, Norway was relegated as the world's most democratic country by the Democracy Index.