Norway
 

Overview
Country, western Scandinavian Peninsula, northern Europe.

Area: 125,004 sq mi (323,758 sq km). Population (2005 est.): 4,617,000. Capital: Oslo. Most of the people are Norwegian, though there are several ethnic minorities, including some 30,000 to 40,000 Sami (Lapps). Language: Norwegian (official). Religion: Christianity (predominantly Evangelical Lutheran [official]). Currency: Norwegian krone. Norway is among Europe’s largest countries. It is a mountainous land with extensive plateau regions in its southwestern and central parts. Traditionally a fishing and lumbering country, it greatly increased its mining and manufacturing activities since World War II. It has a developed economy largely based on services, petroleum and natural gas production, and light and heavy industries. Literacy is virtually 100%. Norway is a constitutional monarchy with one legislative house; its chief of state is the king, and the head of government is the prime minister. Several principalities were united into the kingdom of Norway in the 11th century. It had the same king as Denmark from 1380 to 1814, when it was ceded to Sweden. The union with Sweden was dissolved in 1905, and Norway’s economy grew rapidly. It remained neutral during World War I, although its shipping industry played a vital role in the conflict. It declared its neutrality in World War II but was invaded and occupied by German troops. Norway maintains a comprehensive welfare system and is a member of NATO. Its citizens rejected membership in the European Union in 1994.

Profile
Official name Kongeriket Norge (Kingdom of Norway)
Form of government constitutional monarchy with one legislative house (Storting, or Parliament [169])
Chief of state King
Head of government Prime Minister
Capital Oslo
Official language Norwegian; Sami (locally)
Official religion Evangelical Lutheran
Monetary unit Norwegian krone (pl. kroner; NOK)
Population estimate (2008) 4,762,000
Total area (sq mi) 148,7261
Total area (sq km) 385,1991
1Includes Svalbard and Jan Mayen.

Main

country of northern Europe that occupies the western half of the Scandinavian peninsula. Nearly half of the inhabitants of the country live in the far south, in the region around Oslo, the capital. About two-thirds of Norway is mountainous, and off its much-indented coastline lie, carved by deep glacial fjords, some 50,000 islands.

Indo-European peoples settled Norway’s coast in antiquity, establishing a permanent settlement near the present capital of Oslo some 6,000 years ago. The interior was more sparsely settled, owing to extremes of climate and difficult terrain, and even today the country’s population is concentrated in coastal cities such as Bergen and Trondheim. Dependent on fishing and farming, early Norwegians developed a seafaring tradition that would reach its apex in the Viking era, when Norse warriors regularly raided the British Isles, the coasts of western Europe, and even the interior of Russia; the Vikings also established colonies in Iceland and Greenland and explored the coast of North America (which Leif Eriksson called Vinland) more than a thousand years ago. This great tradition of exploration by such explorers as Leif Erikkson and his father, Erik the Red, continued into modern times, exemplified by such men as Fridtjof Nansen, Roald Amundsen, and Thor Heyerdahl. Weakened by plague and economic deterioration in the late Middle Ages and dominated by neighbouring Denmark and Sweden, Norwegians turned to trading in fish and lumber, and modern Norway, which gained its independence in 1905, emerged as a major maritime transporter of the world’s goods as well as a world leader in specialized shipbuilding. In the 1970s the exploitation of offshore oil and natural gas became the major maritime industry, with Norway emerging in the 1990s as one of the world’s leading petroleum exporters.

Lying on the northern outskirts of the European continent and thus avoiding the characteristics of a geographic crossroads, Norway (the “northern way”) has maintained a great homogeneity among its peoples and their way of life. Small enclaves of immigrants, mostly from southeastern Europe and South Asia, established themselves in the Oslo region in the late 20th century, but the overwhelming majority of the country’s inhabitants are ethnically Nordic. The northern part of the country, particularly the rugged Finnmark Plateau, is home to the Sami (also called Lapps or Laplanders), a Uralic people whose origins are obscure. Life expectancy rates in Norway are among the highest in the world. The main political division reflects differing views on the importance of free-market forces; but the socialists long ago stopped insisting on nationalization of the country’s industry, and the nonsocialists have accepted extensive governmental control of the country’s economy. Such evident national consensus—along with abundant waterpower, offshore oil, and peaceful labour relations—was a major factor in the rapid growth of Norway as an industrial nation during the 20th century and in the creation of one of the highest standards of living in the world, reinforced by a comprehensive social welfare system.

Norway’s austere natural beauty has attracted visitors from all over the world. The country has also produced many important artists, among them composer Edvard Grieg, painter Edvard Munch, novelists Knut Hamsun and Sigrid Undset, and playwright Henrik Ibsen. Of his country and its ruminative people, Ibsen observed, “The magnificent, but severe, natural environment surrounding people up there in the north, the lonely, secluded life—the farms are miles apart—forces them to…become introspective and serious.…At home every other person is a philosopher!”

Land
With the Barents Sea to the north, the Norwegian Sea and the North Sea to the west, and Skagerrak (Skager Strait) to the south, Norway has land borders only to the east—with Sweden, Finland, and Russia.

Norway occupies part of northern Europe’s Fennoscandian Shield. The extremely hard bedrock, which consists mostly of granite and other heat- and pressure-formed materials, ranges from one to two billion years in age.

Relief
Glaciation and other forces wore down the surface and created thick sandstone, conglomerate, and limestone deposits known as sparagmite. Numerous extensive areas called peneplains, whose relief has been largely eroded away, also were formed. Remains of these include the Hardanger Plateau—3,000 feet (900 metres) above sea level—Europe’s largest mountain plateau, covering about 4,600 square miles (11,900 square km) in southern Norway; and the Finnmark Plateau (1,000 feet [300 metres] above sea level), occupying most of Finnmark, the northernmost and largest county of Norway.

From the Cambrian through the Silurian geologic period (i.e., from about 540 to 415 million years ago), most of the area was below sea level and acquired a layer of limestone, shale, slate, and conglomerate from 330 to 525 feet (100 to 160 metres) thick. Folding processes in the Earth then gave rise to a mountain system that is a continuation of the Caledonian orogenic belt. Norway has an average elevation of 1,600 feet (500 metres), compared with 1,000 feet (300 metres) for Europe as a whole.

Rivers running westward acquired tremendous erosive power. Following fracture lines marking weaknesses in the Earth’s crust, they dug out gorges and canyons that knifed deep into the jagged coast. To the east the land sloped more gently, and broader valleys were formed. During repeated periods of glaciation in the Great Ice Age of the Quaternary Period (i.e., about the last 2.6 million years), the scouring action of glaciers tonguing down the V-shaped valleys that were then part of the landscape created the magnificent U-shaped drowned fjords that now grace the western coast of Norway. Enormous masses of soil, gravel, and stone were also carried by glacial action as far south as present-day Denmark and northern Germany. The bedrock, exposed in about 40 percent of the area, was scoured and polished by the movements of these materials.

There are four traditional regions of Norway, three in the south and one in the Arctic north. The three main regions of the south are defined by wide mountain barriers. From the southernmost point a swelling complex of ranges, collectively called Lang Mountains, runs northward to divide eastern Norway, or Østlandet, from western Norway, or Vestlandet. The narrow coastal zone of Vestlandet has many islands, and steep-walled, narrow fjords cut deep into the interior mountain region. The major exception is the wide Jæren Plain, south of Stavanger. An eastward sweep of the mountains separates northern Østlandet from the Trondheim region, or Trøndelag. Northern Norway, or Nord-Norge, begins almost exactly at the midpoint of the country. Most of the region is above the Arctic Circle, and much of it is filled with mountains with jagged peaks and ridges, even on the many islands.

Drainage
The Glåma (Glomma) River, running south almost the entire length of eastern Norway, is 372 miles (600 km) long—close to twice the length of the two other large drainage systems in southern Norway, which meet the sea at the cities of Drammen and Skien. The only other long river is the 224-mile- (360-km-) long Tana-Anarjåkka, which runs northeast along part of the border with Finland. Norway has about 65,000 lakes with surface areas of at least 4 acres (1.5 hectares). By far the largest is Mjøsa, which is 50 miles (80 km) north of Oslo on the Lågen River (a tributary of the Glåma).

Soils
In the melting periods between ice ages, large areas were flooded by the sea because the enormous weight of the ice had depressed the land. Thick layers of clay, silt, and sand were deposited along the present coast and in large areas in the Oslo and Trondheim regions, which rise as high as 650 feet (200 metres) above sea level today. Some very rich soils are found below these old marine coastal regions. In the large areas covered by forests, the main soil has been stripped of much of its mineral content, and this has created poor agricultural land.

In the interior of the Østlandet region, farms are located along the sides of the broad valleys, the bottoms of which contain only washed-out deposits of soil. With rich glacier-formed soils, exceptionally mild winters, long growing seasons, and plentiful precipitation, the Jæren Plain boasts the highest yields of any agricultural area in Norway.

Climate
Although it occupies almost the same degrees of latitude as Alaska, Norway owes its warmer climate to the Norwegian Current (the northeastern extension of the Gulf Stream), which carries four to five million tons of tropical water per second into the surrounding seas. This current usually keeps the fjords from freezing, even in the Arctic Finnmark region. Even more important are the southerly air currents brought in above these warm waters, especially during the winter.

The mean annual temperature on the west coast is 45 °F (7 °C), or 54 °F (30 °C) above average for the latitude. In the Lofoten Islands, north of the Arctic Circle, the January mean is 43 °F (24 °C) above the world average for this latitude and one of the world’s greatest thermal anomalies. Norway lies directly in the path of the North Atlantic cyclones, which bring frequent gales and changes in weather. Western Norway has a marine climate, with comparatively cool summers, mild winters, and nearly 90 inches (2,250 mm) of mean annual precipitation. Eastern Norway, sheltered by the mountains, has an inland climate with warm summers, cold winters, and less than 30 inches (760 mm) of mean annual precipitation.

Plant and animal life
Norway has about 2,000 species of plants, but only a few, mainly mountain plants, are endemic to Norway. Thick forests of spruce and pine predominate in the broad glacial valleys up to 2,800 feet (850 metres) above sea level in eastern Norway and 2,300 feet (700 metres) in the Trondheim region. Even in the thickest spruce woods the ground is carpeted with leafy mosses and heather, and a rich variety of deciduous trees—notably birch, ash, rowan, and aspen—grow on even the steepest hillsides. The birch zone extends from 3,000 to 3,900 feet (900 to 1,200 metres) above sea level, above which there is a willow belt that includes dwarf birch.

In western Norway conifers and broad-leaved trees abound in approximately equal numbers. The largest forests in Norway are found between the Swedish border and the Glåma River, east of Oslo. About half of the Østlandet region is forested. The region also has about half of Norway’s total forest resources and an equivalent share of the country’s total area of fully cultivated land. Nearly one-third of the area of Trøndelag is forested. North of the Arctic Circle there is little spruce, and pine grows mainly in the inland valleys amid their surprisingly rich vegetation. Wild berries grow abundantly in all regions; they include blueberries and cranberries of small size as well as yellow cloudberries, a fruit-bearing plant of the rose family that is little known outside Scandinavia and Britain.

Reindeer, wolverines, lemmings, and other Arctic animals are found throughout Norway, although in the south they live only in the mountain areas. Elk are common in the large coniferous forests, and red deer are numerous on the west coast. Just 150 years ago large animals of prey were common in Norway, but now the bear, wolf, and lynx are found only in a few areas, mainly in the north. Foxes, otters, and several species of marten, however, are common, and in many areas badgers and beavers thrive.

Most of the rivers and lakes have a variety of fish, notably trout and salmon. The latter are found in at least 160 rivers, often in an abundance that attracts anglers from throughout the world.

Of the large variety of birds, many migrate as far as Southern Africa for the winter. In the north people collect eggs and down from millions of seabirds, and, as far south as Ålesund, small cliff islands often are nearly covered by several hundred thousand nesting birds. Partridges and several kinds of grouse are common in the mountains and forests and are popular game birds.

People
Ethnic groups
In most parts of Norway the nucleus of the population is Nordic in heritage and appearance. Between 60 and 70 percent have blue eyes. An influx of people from southern Europe has been strong in southwestern Norway. Nord-Norge has about nine-tenths of the estimated 30,000 to 40,000 Sami—the country’s first inhabitants—living in Norway. Only a small number of them still practice traditional reindeer herding on the Finnmark Plateau. The Sami arrived in Norway at least 10,000 years ago, perhaps from Central Asia. Formerly subject to widespread, even official ethnic discrimination, the Sami are now legally recognized as a distinct culture and have been granted some measure of autonomy through the Sami Parliament.

Languages
The Norwegian language belongs to the North Germanic branch of the Germanic language group. The Norwegian alphabet has three more letters than the Latin alphabet—æ, ø, and å, pronounced respectively as the vowels in bad, burn, and ball. Modern Norwegian has many dialects, but all of them, as well as the Swedish and Danish languages, are understood throughout all three of these Scandinavian countries. Until about 1850 there was only one written language, called Riksmål, or “Official Language,” which was strongly influenced by Danish during the 434-year union of the two countries. Landsmål, or “Country Language,” was then created out of the rural dialects. After a long feud, mostly urban-rural in makeup, the forms received equal status under the terms Bokmål (“Book Language”) and Nynorsk (New Norwegian), respectively. For more than four-fifths of schoolchildren, Bokmål is the main language in local schools, and it is the principal language of commerce and communications. In daily speech Bokmål is predominant in the area around Oslo and the eastern Norwegian lowland, while Nynorsk is widely spoken in the mountainous interior and along the west coast.

More than 15,000 Norwegians, mostly in scattered pockets of northern Norway, speak North Sami as a first language. A Uralic language, Sami has been granted semiofficial status even as it has rapidly lost ground to Norwegian.

Almost all educated Norwegians speak English as a second language. Indeed, so widespread is its use that some commentators have voiced concern that English may displace Norwegian in commerce and industry.

Religion
About nine-tenths of all Norwegians belong to the Evangelical Lutheran national church, the Church of Norway, which is endowed by the government. The largest groups outside this establishment are Pentecostals, Roman Catholics, Lutheran Free Church members, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Methodists, and Baptists. As a result of Asian immigration, there also are small groups of Muslims and Buddhists.

Settlement patterns
Østlandet contains more than half of Norway’s population, most of whom live in the metropolitan area of the national capital, Oslo, and in the many industrial cities and urban agglomerations on both sides of Oslo Fjord. With the lion’s share of the national wealth in mining and manufacturing and the concentration of economic activity around Oslo Fjord, Østlandet has the highest average income per household of Norway’s traditional regions.

Norway has never had the agricultural villages that are common elsewhere in Europe. The more densely populated areas of the country have grown up around crossroads of transportation, from which people have moved to the cities and suburbs. Thus, there is actually little borderline between the rural and urban populations. For many years Oslo has attracted settlers from throughout the country, becoming a national melting pot surrounded by the most important agricultural and industrial districts of Norway. The coastline facing Denmark across the Skagerrak passage, stretching from Oslo Fjord to the southern tip of Norway, is densely populated and contains many small towns, coastal villages, and small farms. Centred on the city of Kristiansand, this area is sometimes set apart as a fifth region: southern Norway, or Sørlandet. In Vestlandet the industrial city of Stavanger has attracted large numbers of settlers and has continued to expand as Norway’s oil capital. Bergen, the capital of Vestlandet and Norway’s largest city from the Hanseatic period in the mid 19th century, is a centre for fish exports. Trondheim, the third largest city in Norway and for long periods the national capital, dominates Trøndelag. Tromsø is the capital of Nord-Norge and is a hub for various Arctic activities, including fishing, sealing, and petroleum exploration.

Demographic trends
Largely as a result of a significant increase in the proportion of the population over age 80, the population of Norway continued to grow slowly but steadily at the end of the 20th century. The birth rate fell slightly during the 1990s—to about half the world’s average—but so did the death rate, as life expectancy (about 75 years for men and about 81 years for women) was among the highest in Europe.

Migration from rural to urban areas slowed in the 1980s, but movement away from Nord-Norge increased. At the beginning of the 21st century, about three-fourths of the population lived in towns and urban areas. Norway has a small but varied population of foreign nationals, the great majority of them living in urban areas. Of these, more than half are from other European countries—primarily Denmark, Sweden, and the United Kingdom, with small groups from Pakistan and North and South America (primarily the United States). Since the 1960s Norway has practiced a strict policy concerning immigrants and refugees. Emigration—of such great importance in Norway in the 19th and early 20th centuries—ceased to be of any significance, although in most years there is a small net out-migration of Norwegian nationals.

Economy
The Norwegian economy is dependent largely on the fortunes of its important petroleum industry. Thus, it experienced a decline in the late 1980s as oil prices fell, but by the late 1990s it had rebounded strongly, benefiting from increased production and higher prices. In an effort to reduce economic downturns caused by drops in oil prices, the government in 1990 had established the Government Petroleum Fund (renamed the Government Pension Fund), into which budget surpluses were deposited for investment overseas. Norway reversed its negative balance of payments, and the growth of its gross national product (GNP)—which had slowed during the 1980s—accelerated. By the late 1990s Norway’s per capita GNP was the highest in Scandinavia and among the highest in the world. The Norwegian economy remained robust into the early 21st century, and Norway fared much better than many other industrialized countries during the international financial and economic crisis that began in 2008.

Only about one-fifth of Norway’s commodity imports are food and consumer goods; the rest consists of raw materials, fuels, and capital goods. The rate of reinvestment has been high in Norway for a number of years. This is reflected in the relatively steady employment in the building and construction industry. Rapid growth, however, has been registered in commercial and service occupations, as is the case in most countries with a high standard of living.

Fewer than 5 percent of the industrial companies in Norway have more than 100 employees. Nonetheless, they account for half of the industrial labour force and for more than half of production. The smaller companies are usually family-owned, whereas most of the larger ones are joint-stock companies. Foreign interests control companies accounting for about 10 percent of total production. Only a few larger concerns are state-owned, and even these are usually run with almost complete independence. However, the government traditionally has had a significant ownership control over major economy sectors, such as oil, telecommunications, power, and transport, but from the end of the 1990s many such companies were partially or fully privatized.

Agriculture, forestry, and fishing
By the beginning of the 21st century, the number of farms of at least 1.25 acres (0.5 hectare) had decreased by more than half of its 1950 total of more than 200,000. Much of the abandoned acreage was absorbed into the remaining farms. Nevertheless, many farms remain small; about half have more than 25 acres (10 hectares) of farmland, while only about 1 percent have more than 125 acres (50 hectares). Labour for hire is scarce, and most of the work must be done by farmer-owners themselves. Extensive mechanization and fertilization, however, have kept total farm output on the increase. Livestock is the major agricultural product, and, although the country is more than self-sufficient in animal products, it remains dependent on imports for cereal crops.

The agricultural core of the Østlandet region lies in the lowlands extending eastward and southward to the Swedish border. With suitable precipitation during the growing season, the highest July temperatures in Norway, a soil consisting of relatively rich marine deposits, and large nearby markets, the land is intensively cultivated. There are even a number of large, heavily mechanized farms producing cereal grains, which generally do not grow well in such latitudes. Most of the farms, however, are small. To supplement their income from domestic animals, vegetables, and fruits, a number of farmers pursue forestry as a secondary occupation; most of the forests are a part of farm acreages.

In western Norway, Karm Island comprises a notably rich agricultural area. The inland fjord areas of Hardanger are more sheltered, with rich fruit districts specializing in apples and cherries. Trøndelag is Norway’s most typical agricultural region, with flat, fertile land around the wide Trondheim Fjord (Trondheimsfjorden) and the city of Trondheim.

Although less than one-twentieth of Norway’s total area is agricultural land, productive forests constitute more than one-third of the total area. Forestry forms the basis for the wood-processing industry, which accounts for a small but important part of Norway’s total commodity exports, and it is of major importance for the half of all Norwegian farms that are so small that a second major source of income must be found.

Along the coast fishing plays the same role that forestry does elsewhere. At the same time, it forms the basis of a large fish-processing industry and offers seasonal employment for many farmers. Of all fishermen only half fish as their sole occupation. Most vessels are owned by the fishermen themselves, the necessary crew members being paid by shares of gross income in a continuation of a centuries-old tradition of the sea. A critical problem is how to avoid depleting the fish resources while maintaining the volume. About half the catch goes into fish meal and oil, but some is processed for human consumption in freezing plants. Fish offal is used as feed at mink farms. In the northwest the city of Ålesund thrives on fishing.

By the mid-1990s fish farming had developed over a period of 25 years into the cornerstone of the coastal economy, having created some 15,000 jobs in Norway. The total number of fishermen decreased by about three-fourths from 1950 to the end of the 20th century, and the number of vessels decreased by more than three-fifths over the same period. Most of the remaining boats are small, but large vessels account for more than half the catch. Once a world leader in Antarctic whaling, Norway has since 1968 hunted only smaller species of toothed whales. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Norway complied with the International Whaling Commission’s total ban on commercial whaling. By the mid 1990s, however, the Norwegian government gradually was allowing limited catches of some species, arguing that they were not endangered any longer and that they posed a serious threat to fish populations. The latter argument is also used in defense of sealing. However, both whaling and sealing have declined sharply as a result of low profitability and international criticism.

Resources and power
With an area of more than 386,000 square miles (1,000,000 square km), Norway’s continental shelf is about three times as large as the country’s land area. The rich resources found there are largely responsible for an ongoing boundary dispute between Norway and Russia. Negotiations between the two countries began in the mid-1970s and involve competing approaches to the line separating their claims in the Barents Sea. The contested area is estimated to be about 60,000 square miles (155,000 square km). Norway insists on a midline partition, while Russia insists on a partition based on a sector principle that would make 32° E the dividing line.

Oil and gas
By the mid-1990s Norway had become the world’s second largest oil exporter (behind Saudi Arabia), and it remained among the world’s most important oil exporters in the early 21st century. The first commercially important discovery of petroleum on Norway’s continental shelf was made at the Ekofisk field in the North Sea late in 1969, just as foreign oil companies were about to give up after four years of exploratory drilling. Intensified exploration increased reserves faster than production. Nevertheless, by the mid-1990s about half of export earnings and nearly one-tenth of government revenues came from offshore oil and gas, and these revenues continued to increase as the end of the century approached. It was estimated that the high rate of oil production could be sustained at least into the second decade of the 21st century, while that of natural gas was projected to increase dramatically and be sustained much longer.

More than one-fourth of the huge investment made in Norwegian offshore operations by the mid-1990s went toward the development of the Troll field just west of Bergen, one of the largest offshore gas fields ever found. Its development ranked as one of the world’s largest energy projects. With a water displacement of one million tons and a height of nearly 1,550 feet (475 metres), the Troll A production platform was the tallest concrete structure ever moved when it was towed into place in 1995. Gas deliveries from the Troll field made Norway a leading supplier of natural gas to continental Europe.

Hydroelectricity
About half of Norway’s 65,000 largest lakes are situated at elevations of at least 1,650 feet (500 metres); about one-fifth of the country lies 2,950 feet (900 metres) or more above sea level; and predominantly westerly winds create abundant precipitation. As a result, Norway has tremendous hydroelectric potential. It is estimated that almost one-third of that potential is economically exploitable, of which more than three-fifths had been developed by the end of the 20th century. Hydropower stations meet virtually all Norway’s electrical consumption needs. Norway’s per capita production of electricity is the world’s highest, twice that of the United States. Deep in the Vestlandet fjords lie many of Norway’s largest smelting plants, constructed there to exploit the great hydroelectric resources of the region.

Electrometallurgy
About one-third of the country’s production of electricity is utilized by the electrometallurgical industry, which is Europe’s largest producer of aluminum and magnesium. In addition to being among the world’s leading exporters of metals, Norway is a significant producer of iron-based alloys. Europe’s largest deposit of ilmenite (titanium ore) is located in southwestern Norway. The country also is the world’s principal producer of olivine and an important supplier of nepheline syenite and dimension stone (particularly larvikite). Pyrites and small amounts of copper and zinc also are mined, and coal is mined on Svalbard.

Manufacturing
Mining and manufacturing (excluding petroleum activities) account for more than one-third of Norway’s export earnings. Metals and engineering are the two main subgroups, each accounting for about one-fifth of nonpetroleum exports. Engineering industry exports doubled in the mid 1990s, the largest increase in 15 years. The level of petroleum-related investment is crucial for the engineering industry, which accounted for about one-third of the manufacturing workforce at the beginning of the 21st century. With the decline of traditional shipbuilding beginning in 1980, the importance of the production of equipment for the petroleum industry increased. Supply ships and semisubmersible drilling platforms are exported worldwide, and the Norwegian-designed Condeep production platforms (such as Troll A) are well suited to the rough seas off Norway’s shores.

In mining and manufacturing the Østlandet region has more than half of the country’s production value and trade. Stavanger is a leading industrial area in western Norway. Ålesund contains many engineering firms, and the bulk of Norway’s furniture industry is gathered on its rocky coast.

Finance
The Bank of Norway has all the usual functions of a central bank, and it also advises the government on the practical implementation of credit policy. Publicly financed banks give favourable loans to housing, industry, agriculture, and other economic sectors but share the credit market with savings banks, commercial banks, and insurance companies. In 1984 foreign banks were allowed to establish branches in Norway. The country’s financial system includes an active stock market. Norway’s currency is the krone.

As a result of the downturn in the Norwegian economy in the late 1980s, commercial banks experienced a crisis in 1991. Many of the largest became primarily government-owned as new capital was invested by the Government Bank Security Fund; the old shares were declared worthless. Critics argued that the crisis was worsened by new rules requiring that the depreciation of property be counted as a loss, even when the property was not sold. By the mid 1990s, however, the government-rescued banks had returned to profitability, and they were again privatized.

Trade
Foreign trade, in the form of commodities exported chiefly to western Europe or shipping services throughout the world, accounts for nearly half of Norway’s national income. Norway’s booming petroleum industry has ensured a strong positive balance of payments for the national economy, despite some declines in the manufacturing and agricultural sectors. The great majority of Norway’s petroleum exports go to the nations of the European Union. Other important exports are machinery and transport equipment, metals and metal products, and fish. Norway’s principal trading partners are the United Kingdom (which receives the largest portion of Norwegian exports), Germany, and Sweden (which is the greatest contributor of imports to Norway). Principal imports include machinery, motor vehicles, ships, iron and steel, and food products, especially fruits and vegetables.

Services
The service sector grew by more than 60 percent over the last two decades of the 20th century. Norway receives about three million visitors annually, and the tourism industry employs more than 5 percent of the workforce. In addition, public-sector employment is high in comparison with most industrialized countries, with about one-fourth of all workers employed in public-sector industries.

Labour and taxation
At the beginning of the 21st century, about three-fourths of actively employed Norwegians worked in services, while about one-sixth worked in industry (including manufacturing, mining, and petroleum-related activities). Although the construction sector employed less than one-tenth of the active workforce, its total exceeded that of agriculture and fishing, which constituted a shrinking proportion.

Agriculture and fishing are highly organized and are subsidized by the state. In remote districts private industry may receive special incentives in the form of loans and grants or tax relief. Direct taxes are high, with sharply progressive income taxes and wealth taxes on personal property. The country also levies a value-added (or consumption) tax of some 20 percent—among the highest value-added taxes in the world—on all economic activity. Total tax revenues are equivalent to about half of the country’s GNP, but much of this represents transfers of income (i.e., it is returned to the private sector in the form of price subsidies, social insurance benefits, and the like). All this has added to economic problems of inflation, but increases in productivity have made possible a high rate of growth in real income. Unemployment generally has been below that of much of western Europe.

The strongly centralized trade unions and employer associations respect one another as well as government guidelines and thus help to control the rapidly expanding economy. The largest and most influential labour union is the Norwegian Confederation of Trade Unions (Landsorganisasjonen i Norge; LO), which was established in 1899 and has more than 800,000 members. Other important labour unions are the Confederation of Vocational Unions and the Confederation of Academics and Professional Union of Norway.

From 1945 to 1970 individual income per capita tripled in real terms. Tax rates that progressed upward with income and the greatly increased social security benefits, allocated mainly according to need, contributed to a leveling of incomes. The perennial shortage of labour, especially of skilled workers, had a parallel effect.

Transportation and telecommunications
The elongated shape of Norway and its many mountains, large areas of sparse population, and severe climate make special demands on transportation services. Only the Oslo region has sufficient traffic density to make public surface transportation profitable. A large fleet of vessels links the many fine ports along the sheltered coast. Norway’s largest and busiest ports include those in Bergen, Oslo, Stavanger, Kristiansund, and Trondheim. Norwegian shipowners run one of the world’s largest merchant fleets, carrying about one-tenth of the world’s total tonnage. Of the nearly 1,400 ships that make up the fleet, about two-thirds sail under the Norwegian flag. Shipping accounts for more than half of Norway’s foreign-currency earnings.

In most of Norway regular overland transportation services are so expensive that the government must provide or subsidize both establishment and operation. Bus transport plays a key role in public transportation, aided by some 215 scheduled ferry routes. The number of private automobiles in the country has increased rapidly, creating parking problems and traffic jams in the major cities. About two-thirds of the public roads are hard-surfaced. Demand is growing for additional roads and for the comprehensive reconstruction of the many narrow, winding roads. In 2000 the Lærdal-Aurland tunnel (15.2 miles [24.5 km]) was opened along the route linking Oslo and Bergen. The world’s longest road tunnel, it provides a reliable connection between the two cities, replacing mountain highways that were impassable during the winter months.

The extensive railway system, more than half of which has been electrified, is operated by the Norwegian State Railways (Norges Statsbaner), which sustains large annual operating deficits. Vestlandet has never had north-south railway connections, only routes running east from Stavanger and Bergen to Oslo and from Åndalsnes to Dombås on the line linking Oslo and Trondheim. The connection from Bodø to Trondheim was completed in 1962. Farther north the only railway is the extension of the Swedish railway system to Narvik, which is used mainly to carry iron ore for export. Of the three other links with Swedish railways, one runs from Trondheim and two from Oslo, the southernmost connecting Norway to the Continent via the Swedish and Danish railways.

Norway is a partner in the Scandinavian Airlines System (SAS), which pioneered commercial flights across the Arctic. Several private airline companies add to the increasing domestic service between Norway’s more than 50 airfields with scheduled civilian traffic. The major airports for international flights are located near Oslo, Stavanger, and Bergen.

The telecommunications sector in Norway has been dominated by Telenor, which was government-owned until its privatization in the late 1990s. Although fairly well developed, this sector lags behind that of other Scandinavian countries. Nonetheless, Norway’s mobile-telephone market is among the most saturated in the world. During the 1990s Internet use grew rapidly, and by the beginning of the 21st century about half the population had Internet access.

Government and society
Constitutional framework
Norway is a constitutional hereditary monarchy. The government, comprising the prime minister and the Statsråd (State Council), is nominally chosen by the monarch with the approval of the Storting, the country’s legislature. The Storting settles most matters in unicameral plenary sessions. Only when voting on laws is the Storting divided into two houses. One-fourth of the members are chosen to constitute the Lagting, or upper house, while the remaining members constitute the Odelsting, or lower house. Bills must be passed by both houses in succession.

The constitution of Norway, drafted in 1814 when Norway left the 434-year union with Denmark, was influenced by British political traditions, the Constitution of the United States, and French revolutionary ideas. Amendments can be made by a two-thirds majority in the Storting. Unlike many parliamentary forms of legislature, the Storting cannot be dissolved during its four-year term of office (amendments to overturn this restriction have been defeated frequently since 1990). If a majority of the Storting votes against an action advocated by the Statsråd, the minister responsible or the whole Statsråd resigns. In legislative matters the monarch has a suspending right of veto, but, since the 91-year union with Sweden was dissolved in 1905, this veto has never been exercised.

In 1989 the Sami voted to elect members of the Sami People’s Congress. The body, which replaced the Norwegian Sami Council, is charged with protecting Sami traditions and has autonomy in limited areas (e.g., land use in Sami-populated areas).

Local government
The city of Oslo constitutes one of the country’s 19 fylker (counties). The other counties are divided into rural and urban municipalities, with councils elected every fourth year (two years after the Storting elections). For the country as a whole, the municipal elections tend to mirror the party division of the Storting. The municipal councils elect a board of aldermen and a mayor. Many municipalities also employ councillors for such governmental affairs as finance, schools, social affairs, and housing. Norwegians pay direct taxes to both federal and municipal governments.

The counties can levy taxes on the municipalities for purposes such as roads, secondary schools, and other joint projects. The county councils comprise delegates from the municipalities, while the county governors are appointed by the Statsråd.

Political process
Elections to the 165-member Storting are held every four years. All citizens at least 18 years of age are eligible to participate, and seats are filled by proportional representation. Norway’s political life functions through a multiparty system. Before national elections political parties nominate their candidates at membership meetings in each of Norway’s fylker. Each fylke elects a number (determined by the size of its population) of representatives to the Storting, with party representation allotted on the basis of the percentage of the vote received.

The Norwegian Labour Party (Det Norske Arbeiderparti; DNA), the ruling party from before World War II until the mid-1960s, advocates a moderate form of socialism. In its many years of governing Norway, however, it nationalized only a few large industrial companies. The Conservative Party (Høyre), which traditionally has been the major alternative to the DNA, accepts the welfare state and approves of the extensive transfers of income and of government control of the economy. Between 1945 and 1965 the government was formed by the DNA, which won clear majorities in the Storting. After 1965, however, no single party was able to obtain a majority in the legislature, and Norway was governed by a succession of coalitions and minority governments. Since the late 1980s the Progressive Party, which advocates limiting both immigration and the welfare state, has become a major force in Norwegian politics. Other political parties that played important roles during this period include the Christian People’s (Democratic) Party, the Centre Party (called the Agrarian Party until 1958), the Socialist Left Party, and the Liberal (Venstre) Party.

In the early 21st century, between one-third and two-fifths of the representatives to the Storting were women; this proportion of women in a national legislature was among the highest in the world. Gro Harlem Brundtland became Norway’s first woman prime minister in 1981 and was in and out of office for the next 15 years.

Justice
Before civil cases ordinarily can be taken to court, they first must be submitted to conciliation councils, which settle many issues without recourse to more formal legal action. Decisions of the conciliation councils can be appealed to the courts, and Norway also has a formal system of courts of appeal. The Supreme Court is the final arbiter of legal decisions. The rights of the citizens also are guarded by an ombudsman, who acts on their behalf as an intermediary in matters with public administrators.

Security
Military service of 6 to 12 months, plus refresher training, is compulsory for all fit Norwegian men between 19 and 44 years of age. Nonetheless, Norway’s defense force is far too small to protect all of its territory against a major aggressor. Its strategy was designed to defend key areas, especially in the north, until forces from other members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) could arrive. The Norwegian units have great mobility, and, because of its important strategic location as NATO’s northern flank and its myriad of fjords to serve as naval bases for fleets in the North Atlantic, Norway has sophisticated early-warning systems.

The NATO headquarters for northern Europe was located at Kolsås, near Oslo, until the alliance command structure was reorganized in 1994. A subcommand was then established in Stavanger as a partial replacement. The stationing of foreign troops and the deployment of nuclear weapons are prohibited by Norwegian law except in cases of war or the immediate threat of war. In 1995 Norway lifted restrictions that had prevented NATO forces from participating in training exercises in and off Finnmark.

The Norwegian air force includes fighter planes and antiaircraft rocket systems; the Norwegian navy comprises heavy coastal artillery and light vessels such as gunboats, torpedo boats, submarines, and corvettes. In peacetime the total active military personnel number about 35,000, of which about two-thirds are conscripts. Some 200,000 additional first-line reserves can be quickly mobilized in emergencies. After the Soviet threat faded away in the 1990s, Norway’s military and defense spending was reduced substantially. Now the Norwegian military stresses specialized units suited for UN and NATO assignments.

Health and welfare
Compulsory membership in a national health-insurance system guarantees all Norwegians free medical care in hospitals, compensation for doctors’ fees, and free medicine, as well as an allowance to compensate for lost wages. Membership fees securing cash benefits during illness or pregnancy, covered by another insurance fund, are compulsory for salaried employees and optional for the self-employed. Most Norwegian doctors work in hospitals, the majority of which are owned by the state, counties, and municipalities. Extensive programs of preventive medicine have conquered Norway’s ancient nemesis, tuberculosis. There is also a well-developed system of maternal and child health care, as well as compulsory school health services and free family counseling by professionals. A public dental service provides care for about nine-tenths of children between 7 and 15 years of age. In some municipalities dental care has been extended downward to 3 years of age and upward to 20 years.

A “people’s pension” was established in Norway in 1967 to ensure all citizens a standard of living reasonably close to the level that an individual had achieved during his or her working life. The pension covers old age and cases of disability or loss of support. The premiums are paid by the individual members, employers, municipalities, and the state. The basic pension is adjusted every year, regardless of the plan’s income. Supplementary pensions vary according to income and pension-earning time. The state pays a family allowance for all children up to 16 years of age.

Norway ranks among the top 10 countries of the world in GNP per capita and has one of the world’s highest standards of living. Since the 1950s Norwegians have spent a smaller share of their income than formerly on food, beverages, and tobacco. Travel and leisure activities have increased their share rapidly, however, as have such household goods as electrical appliances. During the 1960s the number of automobiles per inhabitant increased dramatically, from 1 in 21 to 1 in 3; it now is about 1 in 2. A four-week vacation every year with somewhat more than full wages was established by law in 1964. Working hours may not exceed 9 hours a day or 40 hours per week. A five-day workweek had become the rule by the late 1960s.

Norway has pursued progressive social policies. In 1993 it became only the second country to legally recognize unions between homosexual partners. Indeed, in 2002 the conservative finance minister officially registered his partnership and met little public opposition.

Housing
Until the 1970s Norway felt the housing shortage created by World War II. The shortage was aggravated further by high costs in the densely populated urban areas. But housing standards have improved tremendously, and most families live in houses built since the war—a majority of them financed by state loans on favourable terms. In densely populated areas, particularly in and around Oslo, housing prices soared beginning in the early 1990s.

Education
School attendance is mandatory for 10 years, from age 6 to 16, with an optional 11th year. Mandatory subjects include Norwegian, religion, mathematics, music, physical education, science, and English. Optional courses in the arts and in other foreign languages, as well as vocational training in such areas as office skills, agriculture, and seamanship, are available in the upper grades. With three years of additional high school, students may take the examinations leading to university study. A small percentage of college and university students study abroad. Institutions of higher education in Norway have been expanded to accommodate the doubling of the student population that occurred between the early 1980s and the mid 1990s. The country’s four universities are located in Oslo (established 1811), Bergen (1946), Trondheim (1968), and Tromsø (1968).

As many students attend vocational schools as attend colleges and universities, and a few thousand students attend folk high schools—boarding schools offering a one-year course designed for 17-year-old students from rural areas. Only a few of Norway’s schools charge tuition, and all students are eligible for government loans.

Science and research have limited means in a small country. Nevertheless, the Foundation for Scientific and Industrial Research at the Norwegian Institute of Technology (SINTEF) was created in 1950 as an independent organization at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology to stimulate research and develop cooperation with other public and private research institutions and with private industry. SINTEF is financed by the state and by payments for its services. In the natural sciences, reflecting the country’s intimacy with an overpowering physical environment, individual efforts of Norwegians have won particular acclaim.

Cultural life
Located on the outskirts of Europe and with much of its inland population almost completely isolated until the 20th century, Norway has been able to preserve much of its old folk culture, including a large body of legends concerning haugfolket (pixies), underjordiske (subterraneans), and vetter (supernatural beings). On the other hand, as seafarers and traders, the Norwegians have always received fresh cultural stimuli from abroad. A number of Norwegians have made important contributions in return, notably the playwright Henrik Ibsen (1828–1906) and the composer Edvard Grieg (1843–1907). The Norwegian recipients of the Nobel Prize for Literature are Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson (1903), Knut Hamsun (1920), and Sigrid Undset (1928).

Daily life and social customs
Although Norway is in most ways very modern, it has maintained many of its traditions. Storytelling and folklore, in which trolls play a prominent role, are still common. On festive occasions folk costumes are worn and folk singing is performed—especially on Grunnlovsdagen (Constitution Day), commonly called Syttende Mai (May 17), the date of its celebration. Other popular festivals include Sankhansaften (Midsummer’s Eve), Olsok (St. Olaf’s Day), and Jul (Christmas), the last of which is marked by family feasts whose fare varies from region to region but that are traditionally marked by the presence of seven kinds of cake.

The national costume, the bunad, is characterized by double-shuttle woven wool skirts or dresses for women, accompanied by jackets with scarves. Colourful accessories (e.g., purses and shoes) complete the outfit. The bunad for men generally consists of a three-piece suit that also is very colourful and heavily embroidered. Traditionally Norwegians had two bunader, one for special occasions and one for everyday wear.

The country’s natural landscape—its Arctic environment and vast coasts—has shaped Norway’s customs and history, as outdoor activities are central to the life of most Norwegians. In particular, the country’s cuisine reflects its environment. Fish dishes such as laks (salmon) and torsk (cod) are popular. Lutefisk, cod soaked in lye, is common during the Christmas holidays. Sour-cream porridge, pinnekjøtt (dried mutton ribs), reker (boiled shrimp), meatcakes, lefse (griddlecakes), geitost (a sweet semihard cheese made from cow’s or goat’s milk), and reindeer, moose, elk, and other wildlife also are popular traditional delicacies. The strong liquor called aquavit (also spelled akevitt), made of fermented grain or potatoes, is also widely used.

In northern Norway the Sami maintain a distinct culture. Long known as reindeer herders, they maintain their own national dress. While many Sami have modernized and few continue to practice traditional nomadic life, a variation of that lifestyle continues. Where once the whole family followed the herd, now only the men do, with women and children remaining behind in towns and villages. Sami Easter festivals include reindeer races and chanting (joik).

The arts
In Viking days storytellers (skalds) of skaldic poetry wove tales of giants, trolls, and warlike gods. Drawing on this tradition, centuries of Norwegian authors have created a rich literary history, in both spoken and written form. Yet it was not until the 19th century, following Norway’s separation from Denmark, that Norwegian literature firmly established its identity. Especially important were the poetry of Henrik Wergeland and the plays of Ibsen, whose realistic dramas introduced a new, politically charged moral analysis to European theatre. The works of novelists Hamsun and Undset remain influential, though modern Norwegians are more likely to read contemporaries such as Bjørg Vik, Kim Småge, and Tor Åge Bringsværd, who write fantasy, existential detective novels, and philosophical treatises, respectively.

Although Norway comprises one of the world’s smaller language communities, the country is among the leaders in books published per capita. Several thousand new titles appear annually, of which some three-fifths are of Norwegian origin. Literature is subsidized through a variety of means, including tax exemption, grants to writers, and government purchasing for libraries. In all, there are about 5,000 public or school libraries.

Norwegian painters of the 20th century have excelled in murals to such an extent that they are rivaled only by the Mexican tradition in this sense. Other artists are world-renowned for their multimedia assemblages, pictorial weaving, and nonfigurative art in sculpture as well as painting. The works of Gustav Vigeland have been assembled in Oslo’s Vigeland sculpture park (Frogner Park) in a spectacular display centred around a granite monolith nearly 60 feet (18 metres) high containing 121 struggling figures.

Medieval stave churches of upright logs and houses of horizontal logs notched at the corners have inspired much Norwegian architecture. Private houses, almost all of wood, are made to fit snugly into the terrain. For larger buildings steel and glass are supplemented by concrete that often is shaped and textured with considerable imagination.

Arts and crafts and industrial design flourish side by side, often inspired by archaeological finds from the Viking Age, the culture of the northern Sami, and advanced schools of design. Norway has markedly increased its exports of furniture, enamelware, textiles, tableware, and jewelry, much of which incorporates design motifs reflecting these cultural heritages as well as avant-garde styles. A distinctive Scandinavian decorative art form called rosemaling, widely practiced in Norway, involves painting objects such as furniture with floral designs; special schools called folkehøgskoler offer classes in this and other crafts.

Norwegian composers Grieg and, to a lesser extent, Johan Svendsen and Geirr Tveitt have earned acclaim. Contemporary composers such as Åse Hedstrøm, Nils Henrik Asheim, and Cecilie Ore frequently employ themes drawn from ancient folklore, developing work performed by such ensembles as the Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra, the Norwegian Chamber Orchestra, and the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra. Musical festivals in Oslo, Trondheim, Bergen, and other cities honour genres ranging from jazz to heavy metal, hip-hop, and even Norway’s version of country music.

Whereas its Scandinavian neighbours Denmark and Sweden have long-established filmmaking traditions, the film industry in Norway did not achieve international success until the 1970s. The production of Norwegian-made feature films is subsidized, but they usually number about 10 each year. Many of those films are derived from Norwegian literature, including an adaptation of Undset’s novel Kristin Lavransdatter (1995), directed by internationally renowned Norwegian actress Liv Ullmann, and a film version of Jostein Gaarder’s best-selling novel Sofies Verden (1991; Sofie’s World), directed by Egil Gustavsen. Based on an ancient legend, Nils Gaup’s Ofelas (1987; Pathfinder)—most of the dialogue of which is in the Sami language—was nominated for an Academy Award for best foreign language film in 1988. Films in Norway are subject to censorship, primarily on grounds of violence and, to a lesser extent, erotic content.

Cultural institutions
Permanent theatres have been established in several cities, and the state traveling theatre, the Riksteatret, organizes tours throughout the country, giving as many as 1,200 performances annually. The Norwegian Opera, opened in 1959, receives state subsidies (as do most other theatres).

In addition to its National Art Gallery, Oslo opened a special museum in 1963 to honour Edvard Munch, credited as one of the founders of Expressionism and as Norway’s most famous painter. The Sonja Henie–Niels Onstad Art Centre, opened in 1968 near Oslo, contains modern art from throughout the world. Oslo is host to many other museums, including the Ibsen Centre, which honours the famed playwright, and the Resistance Museum, which documents Norway’s struggle against Nazi occupation during World War II. Outside Oslo, the Tromsø Museum’s collection records Sami heritage.

Sports and recreation
Norwegians have the special advantages of abundant space and traditionally close contact with nature. Cross-country skiing and all forms of skating are national pastimes in the long winter season. Figure skater Sonja Henie is one of Norway’s most famous athletes, having captured gold medals in the 1928, 1932, and 1936 Winter Games and subsequently becoming a major international film star. Norway has hosted the Winter Games twice: at Oslo in 1952 and at Lillehammer in 1994. Norwegians have won more medals at the Winter Games than athletes from any other country. Norwegian sporting prowess is not, however, limited to winter competition. Norway also has an excellent record in track and field, notably in long-distance running events.

But above all, skiing is central to the country’s identity. Norway introduced ski competitions in the 18th century for its soldiers, and the first nonmilitary ski event occurred in 1843 at Tromsø. The annual Holmenkollen Ski Festival is the world’s oldest (1892), attracting tens of thousands of people.

Second homes, mainly located along the sheltered coastline and in the mountains, are highly popular with Norwegians; there is roughly 1 vacation home for every 10 inhabitants. Even from downtown Oslo it is only a 20-minute drive to reach the deep forest, and on a pleasant Sunday in the winter the hills surrounding the city abound with skiers.

Media and publishing
Norway’s constitution protects the freedom of the press. Press ethics are on a high level, and editorial independence is universally recognized. Previously, most newspapers had affiliations with political parties, but in the 1980s this relationship faded away.

Some 150 newspapers are published in Norway, about half of them daily—except for Sundays and holidays, when only a limited number are issued. Although most newspapers are small, average circulations generally have increased, and there are some mass-circulation newspapers (e.g., Verdens Gang and Aftenposten) published in Oslo. Many Norwegian newspapers are available on the Internet, which is used extensively throughout the country. A few weekly family magazines and Motor, a monthly magazine focusing on cars and travel, also enjoy wide circulation.

From 1933 the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation (Norsk Rikskringkasting; NRK) had an official broadcasting monopoly similar to that of the British Broadcasting Corporation. It was noncommercial and funded by an annual fee paid by every household with radio and television receivers. But from the early 1980s private local radio stations were allowed, followed by cable television channels and later satellite television. In 1992 a new nationwide television station went on the air, financed by advertisements. TV2 soon became a commercial success, acquiring the bulk of television advertising. In 1993 the first national private radio station commenced broadcasts as the avenues for Norwegian cultural expression continued to multiply at the end of the 20th century.

Jan Christensen



 

History

The earliest traces of human occupation in Norway are found along the coast, where the huge ice shelf of the last ice age first melted between 11,000 and 8000 bc. The oldest finds are stone tools dating from 9500 to 6000 bc, discovered in Finnmark in the north and Rogaland in the southwest. Theories of a “Komsa” type of stone-tool culture north of the Arctic Circle and a “Fosna” type from Trøndelag to Oslo Fjord were rendered obsolete in the 1970s. More recent finds along the entire coast revealed to archaeologists that the difference between the two can simply be ascribed to different types of tools and not to different cultures. Coastal fauna provided a means of livelihood for fishermen and hunters, who may have made their way along the southern coast about 10,000 bc when the interior was still covered with ice. It is now thought that these so-called “Arctic” peoples came from the south and followed the coast northward considerably later. Some may have come along the ice-free coast of the Kola Peninsula, but the evidence of this is still poor.

In the southern part of the country are dwelling sites dating from about 5000 bc. Finds from these sites give a clearer idea of the life of the hunting and fishing peoples. The implements vary in shape and mostly are made of different kinds of stone; those of later periods are more skillfully made. Rock carvings have been found, usually near hunting and fishing grounds. They represent game such as deer, reindeer, elk, bears, birds, seals, whales, and fish (especially salmon and halibut), all of which were vital to the way of life of the coastal peoples. The carvings at Alta in Finnmark, the largest in Scandinavia, were made at sea level continuously from 6200 to 2500 bc and mark the progression of the land as it rose from the sea after the last ice age.

Earliest peoples
Between 3000 and 2500 bc new immigrants settled in eastern Norway. They were farmers who grew grain and kept cows and sheep. The hunting-fishing population of the west coast was also gradually replaced by farmers, though hunting and fishing remained useful secondary means of livelihood.

From about 1500 bc bronze was gradually introduced, but the use of stone implements continued; Norway had few riches to barter for bronze goods, and the few finds consist mostly of elaborate weapons and brooches that only chieftains could afford. Huge burial cairns built close to the sea as far north as Harstad and also inland in the south are characteristic of this period. The motifs of the rock carvings differ from those typical of the Stone Age. Representations of the Sun, animals, trees, weapons, ships, and people are all strongly stylized, probably as fertility symbols connected with the religious ideas of the period.

Little has been found dating from the early Iron Age (the last 500 years bc). The dead were cremated, and their graves contain few burial goods. During the first four centuries ad the people of Norway were in contact with Roman-occupied Gaul. About 70 Roman bronze cauldrons, often used as burial urns, have been found. Contact with the civilized countries farther south brought a knowledge of runes; the oldest known Norwegian runic inscription dates from the 3rd century. At this time the amount of settled area in the country increased, a development that can be traced by coordinated studies of topography, archaeology, and place-names. The oldest root names, such as nes, vik, and bø (“cape,” “bay,” and “farm”), are of great antiquity, dating perhaps from the Bronze Age, whereas the earliest of the groups of compound names with the suffixes vin (“meadow”) or heim (“settlement”), as in Bjorgvin (Bergen) or Saeheim (Seim), usually date from the first centuries ad.

Settlements
The period of the collapse of the Roman Empire in the west (5th century ad) is characterized by rich finds, including chieftains’ graves containing magnificent weapons and gold objects. Hill forts were built on precipitous rocks for defense. Excavation has revealed stone foundations of farmhouses 60 to 90 feet (18 to 27 metres) long—one even 150 feet (46 metres) long—the roofs of which were supported on wooden posts. These houses were family homesteads where several generations lived together, with people and cattle under one roof. From this period and later (600–800), nascent communities can be traced. Defense works require cooperation and leadership, so petty states of some kind with a defense and administrative organization must have existed.

These states were based on either clans or tribes (e.g., the Horder of Hordaland in western Norway). By the 9th century each of these small states had things, or tings (local or regional assemblies), for negotiating and settling disputes. The thing meeting places, each eventually with a horg (open-air sanctuary) or a hov (temple; literally “hill”), were usually situated on the oldest and best farms, which belonged to the chieftains and wealthiest farmers. The regional things united to form even larger units: assemblies of deputy yeomen from several regions. In this way, the lagting (assemblies for negotiations and lawmaking) developed. The Gulating had its meeting place by Sogne Fjord and may have been the centre of an aristocratic confederation along the western fjords and islands called the Gulatingslag. The Frostating was the assembly for the leaders in the Trondheim Fjord area; the earls (jarls) of Lade, near Trondheim, seem to have enlarged the Frostatingslag by adding the coastland from Romsdals Fjord to the Lofoten Islands. A lagting developed in the area of Lake Mjøsa in the east and eventually established its meeting place at Eidsvoll, becoming known as the Eidsivating. The area around Oslo Fjord, although at times closely tied to Denmark, developed a lagting—with its meeting place at Sarpsborg—called the Borgarting.

The Vikings
The name Viking at first (c. 800) meant a man from the Vik, the huge bay that lies between Cape Lindesnes in Norway and the mouth of the Göta River in Sweden and that has been called Skagerrak since 1500. The term Viking Age has come to denote those years from about 800 to 1050 when Scandinavians set out on innumerable plundering expeditions abroad. Surplus population, superior ships and weapons, well-developed military organization, and a spirit of adventure seem to have combined to cause this great movement. The Norwegians mostly sailed westward, raiding and settling in Ireland, Scotland, England, France, the Shetland Islands, the Orkney Islands, the Hebrides, the Isle of Man, the unpopulated Faroe (Faeroe) Islands, and Iceland. People of Norwegian descent settled in Greenland and undertook expeditions to Vinland (somewhere on the northeast coast of North America). Many Vikings returned home, and this meeting with western Europe was decisive for the unification and Christianization of Norway.

Charles Joys
Gudmund Sandvik


 

In the second half of the 9th century the Viking chief Harald I Fairhair, of the Oslo Fjord area, managed—in alliance with chiefs of the Frostatingslag and parts of the Gulatingslag—to pacify the western coast. The final battle took place in Hafrsfjord, near Stavanger, sometime between 872 and 900, whereafter Harald proclaimed himself king of the Norwegians. His son and successor, Erik I Bloodax (so called because he murdered seven of his eight brothers), ruled about 930–935. He was replaced by his only surviving brother, Haakon I, who had been reared in England. Haakon was Norway’s first missionary king, but his efforts failed; he died in battle in 960.

Christianization
The Viking chiefs established relations with Christian monarchies and the church, especially in Normandy and England. Thus Olaf I Tryggvason, a descendant of Harald Fairhair, led a Viking expedition to England in 991. He was baptized and returned to Norway in 995, claiming to be king and recognized as such along the coast, where Christianity was already known. These areas were Christianized by Olaf, by peaceful means if possible and by force if necessary; he also sent missionaries to Iceland, where the new religion was adopted by the parliament (Althing) in 999–1000. In the same year, Olaf was killed in the Battle of Svolder. Fifteen years later another descendant of Harald Fairhair, Olaf II Haraldsson—who had returned from England—was acknowledged as king throughout Norway, including the inland areas. Olaf worked to increase royal power and to complete the Christianization of the country. In so doing, he alienated the former chieftains, who called on Canute of Denmark (now ruler of England) for help. Olaf was killed in battle with the Danes and peasant leaders at Stiklestad in 1030.

Canute’s rule in Norway soon proved unpopular with the chieftains, and, with support from the bishops, the deceased king Olaf became St. Olaf, the patron saint of Norway. With the death of Canute in 1035, Olaf’s young son, Magnus, was elected king. He was succeeded in 1047 by his uncle Harald III Sigurdsson (Harald Hardraade), a former commander of the Vikings in the imperial guard in Constantinople. Harald was killed during a vain attempt to conquer England in 1066.

The Olaf (Fairhair) kings firmly established the Norwegian monarchy with the help of English bishops. In return, sees and abbeys received the larger part of the estates that the Fairhair dynasty had confiscated from the Viking chieftains during the unification of Norway.


 

The 12th, 13th, and 14th centuries

At the end of the Viking Age all royal sons, legitimate or illegitimate, were considered to have equal claims to the crown if they were accepted by a lagting. During the 11th and early 12th centuries it was not unusual for Norway to have two or more joint kings ruling without conflict. Thus, Harald III’s son Olaf III reigned together with his brother Magnus II until the latter died in 1069. Olaf ruled from 1066 to 1093 without being involved in a war; by giving the dioceses (Nidaros [Trondheim], Bergen, and Oslo) permanent areas, he inspired the first Norwegian towns. Olaf’s son, Magnus III, ruled for 10 years, during which he undertook three expeditions to Scotland to establish Norwegian sovereignty over the Orkneys and the Hebrides. He was succeeded by his three sons, Olaf IV (1103–15), Eystein I (1103–22), and Sigurd I Magnusson (1103–30), who ruled jointly and imposed tithes, founded the first Norwegian monasteries, built cathedrals, established the bishopric at Stavanger, and incorporated the clergy of the Scottish isles into the church of Norway.

Conflict of church and state
Following the rule of Magnus III’s sons, the increasing power of the church and the monarch contributed to a century of civil war. During the early 12th century the kings expanded their direct rule over the various provinces, and the family aristocracy in Norway grew discontented. With the accession of Harald IV (ruled 1130–36), interest groups within Norwegian society began supporting pretenders to the throne, and the church was successful in exploiting civil unrest to win independence.

Even though Norway first was Christianized from England, the Norwegian bishops—together with the other Nordic bishops—fell under the archbishop of Bremen (Germany) in the 11th century. A Nordic archbishopric was established in 1104 in Lund (now in Sweden), probably to remove any influence from the Holy Roman emperor on the Nordic churches. In 1152–53 the English cardinal Nicholas Breakspear (later Pope Adrian IV) visited Norway, resulting in the establishment of an archbishopric in Nidaros. The Holy See decided that the new archbishopric should comprise the five bishoprics in Norway (Nidaros, Bergen, Stavanger, Oslo, and Hamar) and the six bishoprics on the western islands (Skálholt and Hólar in Iceland, Greenland, the Faroes, the Orkneys, and the Hebrides with the Isle of Man). In 1163 the church of Norway supported the claims of a pretender, Magnus V Erlingsson, in return for his obedience to the pope, guarantees for the reforms of 1152, and the issuance of a letter of privileges for the church. Magnus’s coronation was the first at which the archbishop presided. The first written law of succession, dating from this coronation, established primogeniture in principle and the prior right of legitimate royal sons to the crown. Instead of kings being elected by the things, a representation dominated by the church was to serve as the electoral body. The law was never applied, and Magnus was succeeded by Sverrir Sigurdsson, a priest from the Faroe Islands who represented himself as a grandson of Harald IV, the first pretender king. After seven years of fighting, Sverrir was acknowledged in 1184 as king of all Norway and set out to bring the church under royal control. He refused to recognize the reforms and privileges made since 1152, and the archbishop and most of the bishops went into exile; Sverrir was excommunicated. The exiles in Denmark established a rebellious party and allied themselves with the secular enemies of the king, who were opposed to the king’s administrative reforms—including the establishment of the hird as a new aristocracy composed of court officials and the heads of estates. This opposition party won control of the Oslo and inland areas and threatened Sverrir’s rule until his death in 1202.

Civil war continued until 1217, when Sverrir’s grandson Haakon IV became king, beginning the “Golden Age” of Norway. Haakon modernized the administration by creating the chancellor’s office and the royal council. He prohibited blood feuds, and a new law of succession was passed (1260) by a national assembly that established the indivisibility of the kingdom, primogeniture, the prior claim of the legitimate royal sons, and, most importantly, the hereditary right of the king’s eldest legitimate son to the crown. During Haakon’s reign relations in the northern area were first regulated by a treaty with Russia (signed at Novgorod; a similar treaty signed there went into effect in 1326). Greenland and Iceland agreed voluntarily to personal unions with the Norwegian king in 1261 and 1262, marking the greatest extent of Norwegian expansion, which included the Faroes and the Scottish isles. Haakon died during an unsuccessful expedition to the Hebrides in 1263, and in 1266 his son and successor, Magnus VI, ceded the Hebrides and the Isle of Man to Scotland in return for recognition of the Norwegian claim to the Orkney and Shetland islands.

Magnus VI earned the epithet Lawmender for his work on Norway’s legislation. During his reign (1263–80) a common national law code, with special chapters for the towns, replaced the earlier provincial laws in 1274–76. Haakon’s law of succession was confirmed, and a hereditary nobility was established. The king thus took over the legislative functions, and the thing became courts presided over by royal judges (lagmenn). Such a systematic national code, prepared in the king’s chancery, was unique in 13th-century Europe. It remained in force from the 1270s until the Norske Lov of 1687; the version of the code for Iceland (the Jónsbók, 1281) is still partly in force. In a concordat of 1277 the church of Norway had to accept the new lawbooks. Some of the privileges of the church were curtailed, but those that were confirmed left the church essentially independent within its own sphere.

Magnus was succeeded by his young son Erik II (1280–99). Erik’s regency was led by secular magnates who controlled central power throughout his reign. The church tried to win privileges that had been denied by Magnus, but the regency proved stronger. The magnates also tried to limit the rights of the German merchants in Norway but were answered by a blockade from the Hanse cities and forced to agree to the German demands. Erik was succeeded by his brother, Haakon V (1299–1319), who was determined to renew the royal power. He built a series of fortresses, including Akershus in Oslo, marking the shift of political power from the west coast to the Oslo area. Haakon was unable to restore royal power to the extent he wished, however.

Union with Sweden
Haakon’s successor was Magnus VII Eriksson, the young son of his daughter, Ingebjørg, and Duke Erik, son of Magnus I of Sweden. The child was also elected to the Swedish crown in 1319, creating a personal union between the two countries that lasted until 1355. The countries were to be governed during the king’s minority by the two national councils, with the king’s mother as a member of both regencies. The regency in Norway failed to prevent the increasing power of the magnates: the king came of age in 1332 but later was forced to recognize his younger son, Haakon, as king of Norway (1343) and to abdicate in his favour when he reached his majority (1355). Magnus’s elder son, Erik, was designated king of Sweden.

The Black Death struck Norway in 1349–50. It killed as much as two-thirds of a population of about 400,000, and the country did not regain that level again until the mid-17th century. The upper classes were particularly hard hit; only one of the bishops survived, and many noble families were reduced to the peasantry by the death of their workers and the decrease of their incomes. The circumstances of the remaining farmers and fishermen, however, improved correspondingly.

The power of Haakon VI (1355–80) was also limited. The high civil servants and clergy who had fallen victim to the Black Death were replaced by Danes and Swedes. The central government as a whole lost control over the kingdom, and the local areas began to conduct their own affairs. Haakon VI married Margaret, the daughter of Valdemar IV Atterdag of Denmark, and their son, Olaf, was elected king of Denmark in 1375. Olaf also became king of Norway at his father’s death (1380), but he died in 1387 at the age of 17, and his mother, who had served as regent in both kingdoms for him, then became the ruler.

Greenland
The first Nordic settlers in Greenland reached the island in 985 under the leadership of Erik the Red. Two colonies were established on the western coast, one near Godthåb (modern Nuuk) and one near Julianehåb (almost at the southern tip of the island), where a few thousand Norsemen engaged in cattle breeding, fishing, and sealing. The most important export was walrus tusks. A bishopric and two cloisters were organized in Greenland. The Greenlanders lacked wood and iron for shipbuilding and could not support communications with Europe; in 1261 they submitted to the Norwegian king, to whom they agreed to pay taxes in return for his acceptance of responsibility for the island’s provision through a yearly voyage. A worsening of the climate may have occurred early in the 14th century, resulting in a decline in agriculture and livestock breeding. Plagues ravaged the populace; the Black Death alone is estimated to have halved the population. When Norway, with Greenland and Iceland, became subject to the Danish king, conditions worsened; the only ships that then sailed to Greenland belonged to pirates. About 1350 the Godthåb settlement apparently was deserted and then occupied by Eskimo (Inuit), and in 1379 the Julianehåb area was attacked. The last certain notice of Norsemen in Greenland was about 1410; sometime during the following 150 years they disappeared from the island. It was not until the beginning of the 18th century that Greenland again came into the Danish sphere.

The Kalmar Union
With the accession of Margaret I of Denmark to power in 1387, the foundation was laid for political union with Denmark. She adopted her grandnephew Erik of Pomerania (later Erik VII), then six years old, as her heir, and in 1388 she was acclaimed queen of Sweden as well. The next year Erik was proclaimed heir apparent in Norway, and in June 1397 he was crowned king of all three Scandinavian nations in a ceremony at Kalmar, Sweden.

Under the Kalmar Union, Norway became an increasingly unimportant part of Scandinavia politically, and it remained in a union with Denmark until 1814. Margaret and Erik left vacant the highest Norwegian administrative position and governed Norway from Copenhagen. Most appointments made in Norway were given to Danes and Germans. Whereas in Denmark and Sweden national councils took over the government, in Norway the council was unable to assert itself. After the accession of Christian I of Oldenburg in 1450, Norwegian government was again centred in Copenhagen. The lower estates were also essentially powerless against the Danes, and isolated peasant uprisings had neither good leadership nor clear political goals. In 1448 Norway had accepted the Swedish candidate for king, Karl Knutsson, but was forced to acknowledge Christian I and to remain in the union with Denmark. In 1469 Christian pawned the Orkney and Shetland islands to the Scottish king to provide a dowry for his daughter, and the islands were never reclaimed.

The cause of this political impotence in Norway has been a subject of considerable debate. According to one theory, the conscious policy of the kings since the 12th century of crushing the local family aristocracy to strengthen royal power deprived the country of a counterpart to the strong and often rebellious Danish and Swedish aristocracies. A second theory holds that geography was responsible for the absence of a strong aristocracy—that is, that the poorness of the soil prevented economic expansion through the creation of large estates. This geographic factor, together with the loss of population during the Black Death and subsequent epidemics, may explain why Norway’s aristocracy was more affected by the plague than were the nobles in the rest of Scandinavia. The huge loss in population deprived the aristocracy of much of its labour force, which led to the abandonment of farms and the decline of many nobles into the peasant class.

Henrik Enander
Gudmund Sandvik

The 16th and 17th centuries

After 1523 the Norwegian council tried to obtain some independence for Norway within the union. But, because the bishops dominated the council, they became the losers in the Norwegian parallel to the 1534–36 civil war in Denmark. As a result, the council was abolished, and the bishops lost all hope for help from Sweden, which did not want to provoke Denmark and whose king was himself leaning toward Lutheranism. Olaf Engelbrektsson, the last Norwegian archbishop and head of the council, left Norway in early 1537 for the Netherlands, taking with him the shrine of St. Olaf.

In Norwegian political history, the year 1536 is a nadir—in Copenhagen, Norway was proclaimed a Danish province forever. Norwegian topography and society, however, were very different from those of Denmark, and the hereditary Norwegian crown was viewed as a distinct monarchy. Thus, Norway was allowed to keep most of its ancient institutions and laws, and new ones had to be given in a special Norwegian version (for example, the Norske Lov of 1687). From 1550 Norway’s natural resources, including fish, timber, iron ore, and copper—commodities from outside the Baltic area and most useful to western Europe—were increasingly exploited. Consequently, a Norwegian bourgeoisie became a political factor. After 1560 Denmark had a constant fear of Swedish plans to occupy Norway. Therefore it was important that the Norwegians not feel oppressed by rule from the political centre in Copenhagen. All this may explain the special attention the Danish government gave to Norway.

Most representative of this attitude was Christian IV, who visited Norway often and founded several towns (e.g., Kristiansand, with a plan to control the Skagerrak; Kongsberg, with its silver mines; and Christiania, after a destructive fire in Oslo in 1624). He even went on an Arctic tour to Vardø in 1599, proclaiming the Arctic waters to be the “king’s streams.” This was part of his reaction to Swedish pretensions toward the Arctic Ocean.

A certain separatist policy has been attributed to Hannibal Sehested, the king’s son-in-law and, in the 1640s, governor of Norway. He created an army (by conscription of peasants) and a separate financial administration, but he may have wanted a platform against the Danish nobility to work for absolutism. There were no signs of secession in the Norwegian population. When Sehested was deposed in 1651, the financial administration reverted to Copenhagen.

For almost a generation after 1664, Ulrik Frederick Gyldenløve, the illegitimate son of Frederick III, was governor of Norway. He courted the Norwegian peasants and at the same time gave monopolies on trade and timber exports to restricted numbers of merchants. By applying such principles the government in Copenhagen and the Danish public servants managed to rule the now far-off Norway after the Swedish annexations of Skåne, Halland, and Bohuslän.

The 18th century

Economic and social conditions
The modern frontier of southern Norway, which had been established in 1660, was confirmed by a treaty with Sweden in 1751. This treaty also established the frontier farther north (to Varanger) and assigned the interior of Finnmark (Finnmarksvidda) to Norway. The frontier treaty of 1751 is remarkable in two ways. Among existing frontiers in Europe, it was the second oldest (the oldest being the Pyrénées frontier, established in 1659). And a special supplement to the treaty, called the Lapp codicil, guaranteed free crossing of the new frontier to the nomadic, reindeer-keeping Sami (Lapps), based on the seasonal grazing needs of their herds. The modern frontier in Varanger was established by a convention in 1826 between the king of Norway and Sweden and the tsar of Russia.

Romanticists of the later 18th century idealized Norwegian rural society, with its free peasants in a wild landscape. Certainly, their situation contrasted favourably with that of the Danish tenants; the landowning farmers in eastern Norway, especially, earned sizable incomes from their timber forests. In the east and in the region of Trøndelag, therefore, the countryside was characterized by a class of wealthy timber merchants and farmers and a large rural proletariat. Elsewhere in the countryside social conditions were more nearly equal. The Norwegian population consisted almost exclusively of peasants and fishermen; no city or urban agglomeration exceeded 15,000 inhabitants. The census of 1801 counted 883,000 inhabitants in Norway and 925,000 in Denmark. The numbers reveal a remarkable population growth since the 17th century and indicate an economic stability that in the 19th century provided the basis of Norway’s quest for independence.

Thomas Malthus was the first demographer to see the exceptional possibilities for population studies in the Scandinavian countries, where civic registers were kept by parsons. In 1799, the year following his publication of An Essay on the Principle of Population, Malthus went to Norway to confirm his theories about checks on population growth. He found a late marital age, which he ascribed incorrectly to military service and a large servant class. In fact, early marriages were hindered by poverty and lack of land. Moreover, Norwegian population statistics of the 18th century indicate years of famine and epidemics, as do Swedish and Danish statistics. Malthus was correct, however, in discerning that demographic evolution in nonindustrialized countries could be studied better in Scandinavia than anywhere else in the world.

Return to Greenland
How and why the Norse community in Greenland perished at the end of the Middle Ages is an unsolved and fascinating problem. In the beginning of the 18th century there still was hope of finding Norse descendants among the Eskimo in Greenland. A Norwegian clergyman, Hans Egede, having managed to persuade the authorities that such people should be converted to the Lutheran faith, arrived in the Godthåb Fjord (in the southwest) to begin a new European settlement in Greenland but found only Eskimo. Later in the century another colony was founded at Julianehåb.

Two factors are visible in this activity. First, the Pietist movement, which had considerable influence in Denmark, demanded religious conversion and stressed an obligation to bring the gospel to the heathens. A Ministry of Missions, founded in 1714, supported Egede in Greenland as it supported missionary activity among the Sami in northern Norway and the Indians at Tranquebar on the Coromandel Coast of southern India. Second, missionary activity became possible because of a close alliance with commercial interests. Egede himself founded a company in Bergen for trade with Greenland. The trade later passed to the Royal Greenland Trading Company of Copenhagen. The trade with Finnmark (now the northernmost part of Norway) was reserved, in principle, for merchants of Copenhagen as well.

The Napoleonic Wars and the 19th century

Denmark-Norway’s attempt to remain neutral in the struggle between France and England and their respective allies early in the 19th century came to an end after England’s preemptive naval actions of 1807, in which the entire Danish fleet was taken. The continental blockade of England that followed, which was against Danish interests, was a catastrophe for Norway. Fish and timber exports were stopped, as well as grain imports from Denmark. The consequences were isolation, economic crisis, and hunger. In 1810–13 England consented to some relaxation of its counterblockade against Norway. As a whole, however, the years 1807–14 convinced leading groups in Norway that they needed a political representation of their own.

The Treaty of Kiel
Swedish foreign policy was erratic during those years, but Denmark-Norway remained an ally of Napoleon I until 1814. After Napoleon’s defeat at the Battle of Leipzig (1813), Sweden repeated its 17th-century strategy by attacking Denmark from the south. With the Treaty of Kiel (January 14, 1814), Denmark gave up all its rights to Norway to the king of Sweden. It did not, however, relinquish its rights to the old Norwegian dependencies of Iceland, the Faroes, and Greenland, as England strongly opposed any buildup of Swedish power in the North Atlantic.

The Danes did not intend this agreement to end the union with Norway. Officially loyal to the Treaty of Kiel, the Danish government worked for the eventual return of Norway. This probably is why the crown prince Christian Frederick (later Christian VIII of Denmark), governor of Norway, colluded with the Danish king in organizing a rising against the Treaty of Kiel. In doing so he needed support in Norway, and he thus came to rely on two political forces, each with regionalist aims. The larger faction consisted of civil servants and peasants who were loyal to Copenhagen but traditionally in opposition to its centralizing policy. The other was the small but important group of timber merchants in eastern Norway who wanted independence from Copenhagen for their trade with western Europe. Since 1809 they had conspired for a union between Sweden and Norway.

This was the main background of a constituent assembly called by Christian Frederick to meet at Eidsvoll, 30 miles north of Christiania. It drew up the constitution of May 17, 1814 (which still exists), and elected Christian to the throne of Norway.

Union with Sweden
Norwegian independence got no support from the Great Powers, and Sweden attacked Norway in late July 1814. After a brief war of 14 days, Christian resigned. Jean Bernadotte (later known as Charles XIV John; called Karl Johan in Sweden and Norway), the Swedish crown prince, accepted the Norwegian constitution and thus could no longer argue on the basis of the Treaty of Kiel. This was of the greatest political importance to the Norwegians. As a constitutional monarchy, Norway entered the union with Sweden in November 1814. Only minor modifications were made in its constitution—the king and foreign policy would be common; the king would be commander in chief of Norway’s armed forces, which could not be used outside Norway without Norwegian consent; and a government in Christiania (with a section in Stockholm) and the Storting (Norwegian parliament) would take care of national affairs.

Gudmund Sandvik

 

For Norway the Treaty of Kiel meant secession from Denmark, the forming of its own separate state with complete internal self-government, and a political centre in Christiania. The history of Norway during the 19th century is marked by the struggle to assert its independence from Sweden within the union and its attempts to develop a modern Norwegian culture. It was a time when an unmistakably national cultural identity emerged, which continued to take shape in the 20th century, based on the foundations of the independent Norwegian state of the Middle Ages. Individuals associated with the rise of a distinct Norwegian culture include the mathematicians Niels Henrik Abel and Sophus Lie, the physical scientists Christopher Hansteen and Vilhelm Bjerknes, the composer Edvard Grieg, the creator of modern realistic drama Henrik Ibsen, the poets Henrik Arnold Wergeland and Bjørnstjerne Martinius Bjørnson, the historians Peter Andreas Munch and Johan Ernst Sars, the explorer and statesman Fridtjof Nansen, and the expressionist painter Edvard Munch.

Population, trade, and industry
Population
Norway’s population grew more rapidly during the 19th century than in any other period of its history. The population rose from 883,000 in 1801 to 2,240,000 in 1900. Whereas the urban population was only 8.8 percent in 1800, it had reached 28 percent by 1900. Economic growth, although considerable during the century, could not keep pace with the burgeoning population, and this was one of the principal causes of a massive emigration of Norwegians. After Ireland, Norway had the highest relative emigration of all European countries in the 19th century. From 1840 to 1914 about 750,000 people left Norway; most were from rural areas and were drawn to the farming opportunities of the American Midwest.

Economic conditions
Norway was also severely hit by the economic crisis that followed the Napoleonic Wars. Norway’s exports consisted mainly of wooden goods to Great Britain and, to a certain extent, of glass and iron products. After the war, when the British introduced preferential tariffs on articles of wood from Canada, Norwegian forest owners, sawmills, and export firms were badly hit. Iron and glass exports also met with marketing difficulties. Fish—which, after timber, was the country’s most important export commodity—was only lightly hit by the slump, and by the 1820s the herring fisheries on the west coast were undergoing a period of vigorous expansion. From the 1850s agriculture developed rapidly. Modern methods were adopted, with an emphasis on cattle breeding. Simultaneously, the building of railroads began ending the isolation of the small communities and opening the way for the sale of agricultural products.

It was, however, the great expansion of merchant shipping (especially between 1850 and 1880) that gave the most powerful boost to the country’s economy. Norway’s percentage of world tonnage rose from 3.6 percent to 6.1 percent, and at the end of the century Norway possessed, after the United Kingdom and the United States, the largest merchant navy in the world. The economic resources that merchant shipping brought to the country laid the basis for industrialization. From 1860 Norway’s industry expanded rapidly, especially in the timber and wood-pulp trade and engineering. Socially and economically this expansion was a springboard for shipowners, manufacturers, and businessmen, all of whom began to play a much greater role in politics toward the end of the 19th century.

The age of bureaucracy (1814–84)

The economic development in the decades immediately after the Napoleonic Wars meant a reduction in the power of the big business concerns and great estates. The decision to abolish the nobility in 1821 was indicative of the greatly reduced social and economic circumstances of the upper classes. At the same time, the position of the civil servants was strengthened, and from then until the latter part of the 19th century they controlled the political power of the country. Apart from the civil servants, there were only two other political factors of any importance in Norway at this time: the farmers and the monarch.

Parliamentary authority
The Eidsvoll constitution of 1814 gave the Storting greater authority than parliamentary bodies had in any other country except the United States. The king retained executive power and chose his own ministers, but legislation, the imposition of taxes, and the budget were within the authority of the Storting. The Storting had the power to initiate legislation, and the king had only a suspension veto. When Charles XIV John (ruled 1818–44) demanded the right of absolute veto, the Storting categorically refused, despite the king’s attempt to intimidate them with shows of military strength. Faced with this unanimous resistance, the king was forced to abandon his struggle, and the Storting’s dominant position became the firm defense against Swedish attempts to further unite the two countries. As a national demonstration, Norway began in the 1820s to celebrate May 17, the date of the Eidsvoll constitution, as a national day. The king’s attempt to outlaw the celebration resulted in violent demonstrations, and during the 1830s he conceded this point also.

Monetary problems
Norway had at the same time many major problems to resolve on the domestic front. The war, which had been financed to a great extent by an increased issue of bank notes, had brought about a reduction of the local currency to one-fifteenth of its prewar value. To ward off inflation, a severe sterling tax was imposed, and in 1816 a new bank of Norway was established that held the monopoly on issuing bank notes. In spite of strong precautionary measures, however, it was not until the currency reform of 1842 that finances were stabilized. From an economic point of view, the civil service was decidedly liberal, and the guild system and old trade regulations were abolished during the 1840s and ’50s. By 1842 it was decided to reduce tariffs, a decision that gradually made Norway a free-trade country.

Political change
The influence that the vote gave to the farmers was not exploited at first, and they continued to elect civil servants as their parliamentary representatives. About 1830, however, a demand was raised for a decrease in expenditure, and, under the leadership of Ole Gabriel Ueland, a more deliberate “class” policy began to be conducted in the Storting. In 1837 a statute regarding local self-government was enacted that offered training for grassroots politicians. The farmers’ policy led to sharp conflicts with influential groups of bureaucrats and finally became a struggle for political power on the national level. Under pressure from a radical labour movement, which arose after 1848 under the leadership of Marcus Thrane, and from the later mounting tension in the relationship with Sweden, many farmers turned to the middle classes and the minor civil servants. The intensely nationalistic attitude of this leftist coalition was expressed in its attempts to strengthen national culture and language. The struggle for the introduction of the vernacular as the official language, instead of the bureaucrats’ Danish-influenced tongue, became an important item of the coalition’s policy. The coalition was organized as the Venstre (Left) political party in 1884.

The union conflict (1859–1905)

Because the union’s king usually resided in Sweden, he was represented in Norway by a governor-general. This gave rise to the governor-general conflict, which was not resolved until 1873, when Sweden yielded to Norway’s main demands. The result was that in Norway the king was regarded as Swedish, and his right to nominate the government in Norway was considered a danger to the country’s autonomy. The conflict revolved around the question of the Storting’s confidence in the government. During the reign of Oscar II (ruled in Norway 1872–1905), matters came to a head when a Conservative government refused to pass an amendment to the constitution that the Storting had three times accepted. After a trial before the court of impeachment (Riksrett), the government was forced to resign in 1884. The Storting, and not the king, had thus acquired the decisive influence on the government, and Norway became the first country in Scandinavia to be governed by parliamentary means.

Although Norway had won full self-government on the domestic front, the union was still represented externally by the Swedish-Norwegian king, and the country’s foreign policy was conducted by the Swedish foreign minister. From the 1880s, therefore, there was an increasing demand for an independent Norwegian foreign minister. In 1891 Venstre won a convincing majority at the polls with this question, among other things, on its program. In spite of this, the Venstre government headed by Johannes Steen—which the king had appointed after the election—did not take up the question of the foreign minister but raised instead a more limited demand for a Norwegian consular service. Even this was flatly refused by Sweden in 1892 and again the following year. When the Storting attempted to carry out this reform independently, it was forced under threat of military action to negotiate with Sweden on a revision of the whole question of the union. Though Sweden soon showed its readiness to be more compliant, the incompatibilities had become so marked that there was no real chance of a compromise.

The negotiations collapsed in 1898, and Norway at the same time demonstrated its independence by abolishing the union emblem on its merchant flag despite the king’s veto. New negotiations were opened in an attempt to solve the more limited demand for an independent consular service, but when these negotiations also failed Norway took the matter into its own hands; the Storting passed a bill establishing Norway’s own consular service. When the king refused to sanction the bill, the coalition government, under the leadership of Christian Michelsen, resigned. As, under the circumstances, it was impossible for the king to form a new Norwegian government, the Storting declared “the Union with Sweden dissolved as a result of the King ceasing to function as Norwegian King,” on June 7, 1905. The Swedish parliament refused, however, to accept this unilateral Norwegian decision. Under threat of military action and partial mobilization in both countries, Norway entered into negotiations on the conditions for the dissolution of the union. A settlement was reached in Karlstad, Sweden, in September 1905 that embodied concessions from both sides. The Swedish-Norwegian union was thus legally dissolved, and shortly afterward Prince Charles of Denmark was elected in a referendum as Norway’s king and came to the throne under the name of Haakon VII.

The 20th century

Economic and industrial growth
The period from 1905 to 1914 was characterized by rapid economic expansion in Norway. The development of the merchant fleet, which had begun during the second half of the 19th century, continued, and at the outbreak of World War I Norway’s merchant navy was the fourth largest in the world.

From about the beginning of the 20th century Norway’s immense resources of waterpower provided a base for great industrial expansion. The large number of waterfalls bought by Norwegian and foreign companies gave rise to grave concern that the country’s natural resources were falling into foreign hands or becoming monopolized by a small number of capitalists. By 1906 three-fourths of all developed waterpower in Norway was owned by foreign concerns. Venstre and the growing Norwegian Labour Party (DNA) pressed for legislation to protect the natural resources of the country. The bill on concessions (later known as the Concession Laws) played a dominating role in Norwegian politics from 1905 to 1914. It led to a split in Venstre—but the majority of the party supported the bill, which was passed by the Storting in 1909 and remained in force despite continued criticism.

The DNA had been founded in 1887, and universal suffrage was one of the principal points in the party program. In the 1890s Venstre likewise adopted this policy, and in 1898 universal male suffrage was introduced. By reforms in 1907 and 1913 the vote was extended to women. One consequence of industrialization and the introduction of universal suffrage was the growing influence of the DNA. A number of social reforms were enacted: a factory act, which included protection for women and children; accident insurance for seafaring men; health insurance; a 10-hour working day (in 1915); and a 48-hour workweek (1919). A 40-hour workweek was introduced in 1977.

World War I and the interwar years

World War I
With the outbreak of war in 1914, Norway, like Sweden and Denmark, issued a declaration of neutrality. Norway was badly hurt by the war at sea, about half of Norwegian merchant shipping being lost. Because the Allied powers could almost totally control Norway’s foreign trade, they forced it to break off exports of fish to Germany and, at the same time, forbade exports of iron pyrites and copper, which were important commodities for the German war industry. Because of the many casualties caused by German submarine warfare, public feeling in Norway became strongly anti-German. The government, however, under the leadership of the Venstre politician Gunnar Knudsen, insisted on maintaining the appearance of neutrality. The war brought a distinct boom to Norway’s economy in shipping, mining, and fish exports, although the prosperity was unevenly distributed. Within the DNA, the left wing formed the majority in 1918, and in 1919 the DNA, unlike the other social democratic parties in western and central Europe, joined the Comintern (Third International). The DNA, however, was unwilling to submit to the centralization that Moscow demanded, and in 1923 it withdrew.

The Great Depression
In the years up to 1935 the various governments—formed alternately by the Conservatives, Venstre (the Liberals), and the Agrarian (Farmers’) Party—pursued, by and large, a liberal economic policy. After the inflation caused by World War I and the postwar years, the main aim during the 1920s was to guide the currency (the krone) back to its former value. Norway received only an insignificant share in improved world market conditions, and by 1927 the unemployment figures were as high as one-fifth of the workforce. The Great Depression in the early 1930s increased unemployment still further, and by 1933 at least one-third of the workforce, including many civil servants, was unemployed.

The government, led by the Agrarian Party (1931–33) and Venstre (1933–35), tried to combat the crisis with extensive reductions in governmental expenditure but refused to consider an expansionist financial policy or the emergency relief measures that the DNA demanded. The DNA thus enjoyed great success in the elections of 1933, although it failed to gain a majority in the Storting. When the DNA formed the government in 1935, with Johan Nygaardsvold as prime minister, it needed the support of at least one other party. By a compromise with the Agrarian Party, the DNA received support for a social program that included old-age pension reform, revision of the factory act, statutory holidays, and unemployment insurance financed by increased taxation. State investments were also greatly increased. Although the situation improved, unemployment in Norway was still as high as one-fifth of the organized labour force in 1938.

Despite economic difficulties, the high rate of unemployment, and the many labour conflicts, the interwar years were a period of vigorous expansion, and the country’s industrial production was increased by 75 percent during the years 1913–38.

Foreign policy
During the 1920s Norway acquired the islands of Svalbard and Jan Mayen, and Norwegian hunters and fishermen occupied an area on the east coast of Greenland. Denmark’s demand for sovereignty of the area led to a conflict that was settled in the Permanent Court of International Justice in The Hague in 1933 in Denmark’s favour. In 1939 the government proclaimed that Queen Maud Land in Antarctica was under Norwegian sovereignty. Because the League of Nations in 1936 had proved ineffective at keeping the peace, Norway’s foreign minister, Halvdan Koht, attempted to coordinate the policy of the smaller states within the framework of the league in an effort to preserve peace. Norway continued to pursue a strictly neutral policy and declined Germany’s invitation to join in a nonaggression pact in 1939.

World War II
With the outbreak of hostilities in 1939, Norway again declared itself neutral. On April 9, 1940, German troops invaded the country and quickly occupied Oslo, Bergen, Trondheim, and Narvik. The Norwegian government rejected the German ultimatum regarding immediate capitulation. The Norwegian Army, which received help from an Allied expeditionary force, was unable to resist the superior German troops, however. After three weeks the war was abandoned in southern Norway. The Norwegian and Allied forces succeeded in recapturing Narvik but withdrew again on June 7, when the Allied troops were needed in France. The same day, King Haakon VII, Crown Prince Olaf, and the government left for London, and on June 10 the Norwegian troops in northern Norway capitulated. The government, through the Norwegian Shipping and Trade Mission (Nortraship), directed the merchant fleet, which made an important contribution to the Allied cause. Half of the fleet, however, was lost during the war.

In Norway, Vidkun Quisling, leader of the small Norwegian National Socialist party (Nasjonal Samling, or National Union)—which had never obtained a seat in the Storting—proclaimed a “national government” on April 9. This aroused such strong resistance, however, that the Germans thrust him aside on April 15, and an administrative council, consisting of high civil servants, was organized for the occupied territories. Political power was wielded by the German commissioner Josef Terboven. In September 1940 the administrative council was replaced by a number of “commissarial counselors,” who in 1942 formed a Nazi government under the leadership of Quisling. The Nazification attempt aroused strong resistance, however. Initially, this took the form of passive resistance and general strikes, which the Germans countered with martial law and death sentences. Once the resistance movement became more firmly organized, its members undertook large-scale industrial sabotage, of which the most important was that against the production of heavy water in Rjukan in southern Norway.

At the end of the war the German troops in Norway capitulated without offering resistance. On their retreat from Finland in late 1944 and early 1945, however, the Germans burned and ravaged Finnmark and northern Troms. The Soviet troops who liberated eastern Finnmark in November 1944 withdrew during the summer of 1945.

The postwar period
The liberation was followed by trials of collaborators; 25 Norwegians, including Quisling (whose name has become a byword for a collaborating traitor), were sentenced to death and executed, and some 19,000 received prison sentences. By a strict policy that gave priority to the reconstruction of productive capacity in preference to consumer goods, Norway quickly succeeded in repairing the ravages left by the war. By 1949 the merchant fleet had attained its prewar size, and the figures for both industrial production and housing were greater than in the 1930s. Until the 1980s Norway had full or nearly full employment and a swiftly rising standard of living.

Political and social change
After the liberation in 1945 a coalition government was formed under the leadership of Einar Gerhardsen. The general election in the autumn of 1945 gave the DNA a decisive majority, and a purely Labour government was formed with Gerhardsen as prime minister. The DNA governed almost continuously from 1945 to 1965. Haakon VII died in 1957 and was succeeded by his son, Olaf V. The Labour governments continued the social policies initiated in the 1930s. From 1957 old-age pensions were made universal, and in 1967 a compulsory earnings-related national supplementary pension plan came into effect. The old “poor law” was replaced by a law on national welfare assistance in 1964. The election of 1965 resulted in a clear majority for the four centre and right-wing parties, which formed a coalition government under the leadership of Per Borten. In 1971 the coalition government split, and the DNA again came to power, headed by Trygve Bratteli.

As a consequence of the referendum on the European Economic Community (EEC), the Labour government resigned and was followed by a non-Socialist coalition government under the leadership of Lars Korvald. The DNA returned to power in 1973 with Bratteli again as prime minister. When he resigned as leader of the party and prime minister in 1976, he was succeeded by Odvar Nordli. Gro Harlem Brundtland, Norway’s first woman prime minister, took over the government and party leadership from Nordli in February 1981. Her government was defeated at the polls in September of that year, and a Conservative, Kåre Willoch, became prime minister. Brundtland returned as prime minister in May 1986 but was again defeated three years later. The Conservatives formed a three-party coalition government under Jan Peder Syse but resigned after one year over the issue of Norway’s future relationship with the EEC. Brundtland again formed a minority Labour government and continued to head it until her resignation in October 1996. A year later the Labour government fell and was replaced by a centre-coalition minority government, with Kjell Magne Bondevik of the Christian People’s Party as prime minister. (King Olaf V died in 1991 and was succeeded by his son, who ascended the throne as Harald V.) Bondevik remained in office until 2000, when his government was replaced by a minority government led by Jens Stoltenberg of the Labour Party, whose brief tenure ended in 2001 with the return of Bondevik at the head of another conservative coalition. In 2005 the so-called Red-Green coalition led by Stoltenberg triumphed in the general election, and he again assumed the position of prime minister, this time at the head of a majority government, which was returned to power in elections in 2009.

Since the 1970s a central issue in Norwegian politics has been the exploitation of the rich natural gas and petroleum deposits in the Norwegian part of the North Sea. As the Norwegian petroleum industry grew in importance, the country became increasingly affected by fluctuations in the world petroleum market, but in the late 20th and early 21st centuries oil revenues played the dominant role in fueling a prosperous Norwegian economy and providing Norwegians with one of the world’s highest per capita incomes. The government, prudently preparing for a time when petroleum profits might not be so lucrative, began reinvesting those profits in the Government Pension Fund (originally the Government Petroleum Fund). Even as much of the rest of the world struggled in the wake of the international financial crisis that began in 2008, Norway continued to prosper, though the international holdings of the Government Pension Fund weakened.

Postwar foreign policy
When the antagonisms between the great powers came to a head in 1948, Norway took part in the negotiations set in motion by Sweden on a Nordic defense union. The negotiations produced a tacit Cold War “Nordic balance.” For instance, in 1949 Norway, followed by Denmark, joined the newly formed North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), but NATO was not allowed to establish military bases or stockpile nuclear weapons on their territories; Sweden remained neutral. The compensation for these self-imposed restrictions was a gradual improvement in relations between the Soviet Union and the Nordic countries.

The dissolution of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s revived an old problem concerning the boundary between Norway and Russia in the Barents Sea of the Arctic Ocean. Once merely an esoteric legal issue, the boundary took on great importance because of its strategic naval relevance to Russia and because extensive deposits of petroleum and natural gas may lie beneath the shallow waters.

At the end of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st century, Norway began to play an increasingly active role in world affairs, mediating between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization and between the government of Sri Lanka and Tamil insurgents, as well as sending troops to serve in Afghanistan as part of the NATO force that responded to the Taliban government’s support of al-Qaeda, the Islamic extremist group that was responsible for the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States.

Jörgen Weibull
Gudmund Sandvik
Ed.

Since the 1960s the question of Norway’s relations with the EEC (from 1993 the European Community within the European Union [EU]) has split the country’s citizenry across traditional party lines and even within families. A member of the European Free Trade Association (EFTA) from its formal inception in 1960, Norway decided to follow the lead of fellow EFTA member Great Britain from 1961 by entering into negotiations for membership in the EEC. These initiatives were thwarted in 1963 and 1967 by the strong opposition of French president Charles de Gaulle. Norwegian orientation toward the EEC was suspended until 1969, when the country again followed Britain’s lead (along with Ireland and EFTA member Denmark) in applying for EEC membership. All four were accepted, but in 1972 Norwegian voters defeated the referendum on membership by more than 53 percent; the other three nations joined the organization in 1973.

For some 10 years thereafter Norway joined the remaining EFTA countries in signing a variety of free-trade agreements with members of the EEC that, though they were bilateral, incorporated the economic liberalism of the EEC. Negotiations begun in 1989 between the two organizations culminated in 1991 in an agreement to form a free-trade zone called the European Economic Area (EEA). Norway became a member of the EEA when it came into effect in 1994.

Meanwhile, the dissolution of the communist governments of the Soviet bloc countries of central and eastern Europe and the breakup of the Soviet Union itself in 1989–91 changed the European political scene as well as the plans inherent in the inauguration of the EEA. EFTA members Austria, Finland, and Sweden suddenly felt politically free to apply for full membership in what soon would become the EU. Norway followed suit, applying for membership in November 1992. In a national referendum in November 1994, however, the Norwegian electorate again rejected the treaty negotiated by the government, albeit by a slightly smaller margin than in 1972.

It may seem contradictory that Norway has continued to reject EU membership. Norway, as a founding member of NATO, has been solidly integrated into Western security politics since 1949. The export of petroleum and natural gas from the North Sea has greatly strengthened Norway’s economy and has more fully integrated it into the global economy. Nonetheless, the movement toward European political, monetary, and military unity that found expression in the Maastricht Treaty and establishment of the EU reminded too many Norwegians of the unions in their past that had subjugated Norway for more than half a millennium. The proponents of EU membership could not convince the opponents that Norway had obtained favourable concessions in its negotiations with the EU regarding fisheries, agriculture, and the exploitation of petroleum and natural gas. Moreover, the opponents were fearful that Norway would once more lose its national independence. Thus, at the beginning of the 21st century Norway found itself in a much-diminished EFTA (with Iceland, Liechtenstein, and Switzerland) but, through its affiliation with the EEA, strongly tied economically to the EU.

Gudmund Sandvik