Norway

Norway officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe occupying the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, as well as Jan Mayen and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard. Norway has a total area of 385,252 square kilometres (148,747 sq mi) and a population of about 4.9 million.It is one of the most sparsely populated countries in Europe. The majority of the country shares a border to the east with Sweden; its northernmost region is bordered by Finland to the south and Russia to the east; in its south Norway borders the Skagerrak Strait, across which Denmarkis situated. The capital city of Norway is Oslo. Norway's extensive coastline, facing the North Atlantic Ocean and the Barents Sea, is home to its famous fjords.

After World War II, Norway experienced rapid economic growth, with the first two decades due to the Norwegian shipping and merchant marine and domestic industrialization, and from the early 1970s, a result of exploiting large oil and natural gas deposits that had been discovered in the North Sea and the Norwegian Sea. Today, Norway ranks as the second wealthiest country in the world in monetary value, with the largest capital reserve per capita of any nation. Norway is the world’s fifth largest oil exporter, and the petroleum industry accounts for around a quarter of its Gross domestic product.Following the ongoing financial crisis of 2007–2010, bankers have deemed the Norwegian krone to be one of the most solid currencies in the world.

Norway has rich resources of oil, natural gas, hydroelectric power, forests, and minerals, and was the second largest exporter of seafood (in value, after the People's Republic of China) in 2006. Other major industries include shipping, food processing, shipbuilding, the metal industry, chemicals, mining, fishing, and the pulp and paper products from forests. Norway maintains a Scandinavian welfare model withuniversal health-care, subsidized higher education, and a comprehensive social security system. Norway was ranked highest of all countries in human development from 2001 to 2007, and then again in 2009 and 2010. In 2010, the World Economic Forum deemed Norway as the 14th most competitive country in the world, however placing at the near bottom of Western Europe. In 2010, Norway was also rated the fifth most peaceful country in the world in a 2010 survey by Global Peace Index, and the world's most democratic country according to the Democracy Index.

Norway is a unitary parliamentary democracy and constitutional monarchy, with King Harald V as its head of state and Jens Stoltenberg as its prime minister. It is a unitary state with administrative subdivisions on two levels known as counties (fylker) and municipalities (kommuner). The Sámi people have a certain amount of self-determination and influence over traditional territories through the Sámi Parliament and the Finnmark Act. Although having rejected European Union membership in two referendums, Norway maintains close tieswith the union and its member countries, as well as with the United States. Norway remains one of the biggest financial contributors to theUnited Nations, and participates with UN forces in international missions, notably in Afghanistan, Kosovo, and Sudan. Norway is a founding member of the United Nations, NATO, the Council of Europe, and the Nordic Council, and is a member of the European Economic Area, the WTO, and the OECD.

Coat of arms

Union with Denmark

After Sweden broke out of the Kalmar Union in 1521, Norway remained with Denmark until 1814, a total of 436 years. 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 in Denmark.

With the introduction of Protestantism in 1536, the archbishopric in Trondheim was dissolved, and Norway effectually became a tributary to Denmark, and the church's incomes were distributed to the court in Copenhagen 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 numerous wars between Denmark–Norway and Sweden. To the north, however, its territory was increased by the acquisition of the northern provinces of Troms and Finnmark, at the expense of Sweden and Russia.

The famine of 1695–96 killed roughly 10% of Norway's population. At least nine severe harvest failures were recorded in the Scandinavian countries between 1740 and 1800, each resulting in a substantial rise of the death rate.

Union with Sweden (19th century)

After Denmark–Norway was attacked by the United Kingdom, at the Battle of Copenhagen it entered into an alliance with Napoleon, with the war leading to dire conditions and mass starvation in 1812. As the Danish kingdom found itself on the losing side in 1814, it was forced, under terms of the Treaty of Kiel, to cede Norway to the king of Sweden, while the old Danish-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 crown prince of Denmark-Norway Christian Frederik as king on 17 May 1814. This is the famous Syttende Mai (Seventeenth of May) holiday celebrated by Norwegians and Norwegian-Americans alike. Syttende Mai is also called Norwegian Constitution Day.

Norwegian opposition to the great powers' decision to link Norway with Sweden, caused the Norwegian Swedish War to break out as Sweden tried to subdue Norway by military means. As Sweden's military was not strong enough to defeat the Norwegian forces outright and Norway's treasury was not large enough to support a protracted war, and as British and Russian navies blockaded the Norwegian coast,both Norway and Sweden were forced to negotiate a settlement. Accordingly, on November 4, 1814, Norway was forced into entering the union with Sweden. Under this arrangement, Norway did, however, keep its liberal constitution and kept control of its own independent institutions, except for the foreign service. Following the Union with Sweden economic development of Norway remained slow.

This period also saw the rise of the Norwegian romantic nationalism, as Norwegians sought to define and express a distinct national character. The movement covered all branches of culture, including literature (Henrik Wergeland [1808–1845], Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson [1832–1910], Peter Christen Asbjørnsen [1812–1845], Jørgen Moe [1813–1882]), painting (Hans Gude[1825–1903], Adolph Tidemand [1814–1876]), music (Edvard Grieg [1843–1907]), 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.

King Karl XIV Johan who came to the throne of Norway/Sweden in 1818 was the first king following Norway's break from Denmark and the union with Sweden. Karl Johan was a complex man whose long reign extended to 1844. King Karl Johan protected the constitution and liberties of Norway/Sweden during the age of Metternich. As such he was regarded as a liberal monarch for that age. However, he was ruthless in his use of paid informers, the secret police and restrictions on the freedom of the press to put down public movements for reform—especially the Norwegian national independence movement.

The Romantic Era that followed the reign of King Karl Johan brought some significant social and political reforms. In 1854 women were given the right to inherit property in their own right just like men. In 1863, the last trace of keeping unmarried women in the status of minors was removed. Furthermore, women were then eligible for different occupations, particularly the common school teacher. However, by mid-century Norway was still far from a "democracy." Voting was limited to officials, property owners, leaseholders, and burghers of incorporated towns. There was some dissatisfaction with this backwardness.

Still Norway remained a conservative society. Life in Norway (especially economic life) was "dominated by the aristocracy of professional men who filled most of the important posts in the central government.There was no strong bourgeosie class in Norway to demand a breakdown of this aristocratic control of the economy. Thus, even while revolution swept over most of the countries of Europe in 1848, Norway was largely unaffected by revolts that year. Most revolts broke themselves on the granite conservativism of the Norwegian society.Indeed the Thrane movement was the only "revolt" that broke out in Norway in 1848.Marcus Thrane was a utopian socialist. He made his appeal to the labouring classes urging a change of social structure "from below upwards. In 1848, he organized a labour society in Drammen. In just a few months this society had a membership of 500 and the society was publishing its own newspaper.Within two years 300 societies had been organized all over Norway with a total membership of 20,000 persons. The membership was drawn from the lower classes of both the town and country.For the first time these two groups felt they had common cause with each other.In the end, the revolt was easily crushed, Thrane was captured and sentenced to three years in jail for crimes against the safety of the state. Upon his release from jail, after serving his sentence, Marcus Thrane migrated to the United States of America.