Norway

Norway is a country in the far north of Europe.

It is long and thin. It has tall mountains and lots of sea. The sea goes deep into the land. The capital city is called Oslo.

Norway is a long, narrow country in northern Europe, on the western side of the Scandinavian Peninsula. About two-thirds of it is mountains, and its coast is cut by deep fjords. Some 50,000 islands lie off the coast.

The north of Norway reaches far beyond the Arctic Circle. About 5.6 million people live in Norway, and nearly half of them live in the far south, around the capital, Oslo.

Norway occupies the western half of the Scandinavian Peninsula. About two-thirds of the country is mountainous, its average elevation is about 500 m (compared with about 300 m for Europe as a whole), and some 50,000 islands lie off its deeply indented coast. Its area is about 385,000 square kilometers (Wikidata, from the Norwegian Mapping Authority's figures).

Statistics Norway counted 5,627,400 residents on 1 January 2026 and 5,636,904 at the end of the second quarter of 2026. Nearly half of the population lives in the region around Oslo, and Britannica puts the urban share at 83 percent (2023). Norway is a constitutional monarchy with one legislative house, the 169-member Storting.

Oslo is the biggest city in Norway.

It has a big, busy harbor. Bergen is a city between hills and the sea. Tromsø is a city far in the north. In summer the Sun shines there all night.

Oslo, the capital, is Norway's center for trade, banking and shipping, and its harbor is the country's largest and busiest. About 718,000 people lived in the city in 2024.

Bergen, on the west coast, was once an important trading town. Its old wharf, Bryggen, still has rows of wooden buildings. Far to the north, Tromsø lies on two islands just off the mainland, well above the Arctic Circle.

Oslo, with 717,710 people in 2024 (Wikidata), is the hub of Norway's trade, banking, industry and shipping, and home to the National Theatre and the Norwegian Opera. Britannica notes that the interior was always more sparsely settled, owing to extremes of climate and difficult terrain, and that the population is still concentrated in coastal cities such as Bergen and Trondheim.

Bryggen, Bergen's old wharf, recalls the town's importance in the Hanseatic League's trading empire from the 14th to the mid-16th century. Many fires, the last in 1955, have destroyed its wooden houses, but rebuilding followed old patterns and methods, and some 62 buildings remain; UNESCO inscribed it in 1979. Tromsø, at about 69.6° N on two islands just west of the mainland, is the capital of Nord-Norge, the northern region that lies mostly above the Arctic Circle; there the Sun stays visible all day and night from late May to late July.

Norway has many fjords.

A fjord is a long arm of the sea between steep mountains. Waterfalls tumble down the cliffs. Long ago, giant rivers of ice made the fjords.

During the Ice Age, huge glaciers slid down Norway's valleys and scraped them deep and wide. When the ice melted, the sea flowed in, making fjords: long, narrow inlets with steep walls. In Geirangerfjord and Nærøyfjord, the rock walls rise up to 1,400 meters from the water, and waterfalls pour down them.

Norway is warmer than many places this far north because a warm ocean current, part of the Gulf Stream, flows along the coast and usually keeps the fjords from freezing. The west is mild and very rainy; the east has warm summers and cold winters. Jostedal Glacier is the largest ice field on mainland Europe.

Norway's bedrock, mostly granite and other heat- and pressure-formed rock of the Fennoscandian Shield, is one to two billion years old. During repeated glaciations of the last 2.6 million years, glaciers flowing down V-shaped river valleys carved the U-shaped, drowned fjords of the west coast. UNESCO inscribed Geirangerfjord and Nærøyfjord in 2005 as archetypal fjord landscapes, among the world's longest and deepest, with crystalline walls rising up to 1,400 m from the Norwegian Sea and reaching 500 m below sea level.

The Norwegian Current, the northeastern extension of the Gulf Stream, carries four to five million tons of tropical water per second into the surrounding seas. The west coast averages about 7 °C a year, far above the average for its latitude, and western Norway receives nearly 2,250 mm of precipitation, against less than 760 mm in the sheltered east. The Hardanger Plateau is Europe's largest mountain plateau, the Jostedal Glacier is continental Europe's largest ice field, and Galdhøpiggen (2,469 m) is the highest point.

Reindeer live in Norway's mountains.

Moose walk in the big forests. Lots of seabirds nest on rocky islands. Far out in the Arctic, on Svalbard, polar bears hunt on the sea ice.

Reindeer, wolverines and lemmings live in Norway's mountains and the Arctic north. Moose are common in the large conifer forests, and red deer live along the west coast. Bears, wolves and lynx live in only a few areas now, mainly in the north. Salmon swim up at least 160 rivers.

On some small cliff islands, hundreds of thousands of seabirds nest together. Far north, on the Svalbard islands, polar bears hunt seals on the sea ice. A survey in 2004 estimated between 1,900 and 3,600 polar bears in the Barents Sea region.

Britannica lists reindeer, wolverines, lemmings and other Arctic animals throughout Norway, although in the south they live only in the mountains. Elk (moose) are common in the large coniferous forests and red deer are numerous on the west coast; bears, wolves and lynx, common 150 years ago, now survive only in a few areas, mainly in the north. Foxes, otters, martens, badgers and beavers are widespread, and salmon run in at least 160 rivers. Many bird species migrate as far as southern Africa, and cliff islands as far south as Ålesund can hold several hundred thousand nesting seabirds.

In the Svalbard archipelago, the Norwegian Polar Institute reports that polar bears are found mostly where there is sea ice, with the most important denning areas on Kongsøya, Svenskøya, Edgeøya, Nordaustlandet and Hopen. Their main prey there are ringed, bearded and harp seals. An August 2004 survey estimated 1,900 to 3,600 polar bears in the Barents Sea population, which dens in both Svalbard and Russia's Franz Josef Land; only pregnant females den in winter.

About 5.6 million people live in Norway.

Most people speak Norwegian. In the north, some people speak Sámi too. Fish like salmon and cod are popular foods. Many people spend lots of time outdoors.

About 5.6 million people live in Norway. Norwegian is the main language, and it has two written forms, Bokmål and Nynorsk. Most schoolchildren learn mainly in Bokmål.

The Sámi are the first people known to have lived in Norway, and most of them live in the north. More than 15,000 people speak North Sámi as their first language. Fish dishes such as salmon and cod are popular, and on May 17, Constitution Day, many people wear colorful folk costumes called bunads.

Norwegian is a North Germanic language with two official written forms: Bokmål, the main school language for more than four-fifths of pupils and dominant around Oslo, and Nynorsk, widely used in the mountainous interior and on the west coast. Until about 1850 there was one written standard, strongly influenced by Danish during the 434-year union with Denmark.

Britannica's Sami article counts more than 53,000 Sámi in Norway in the late 2010s and early 2020s (its Norway article gives an older estimate of 30,000 to 40,000, about nine-tenths of them in Nord-Norge); they arrived at least 10,000 years ago. Once subject to widespread, even official, discrimination, they are now legally recognized as a distinct culture with a Sámi Parliament, and North Sámi, a Uralic language, is official in several municipalities. In the early 21st century growing immigration, including from Africa and the Middle East, made the population more diverse. Britannica describes salmon and cod dishes, sour-cream porridge and lefse among traditional foods, and folk costumes worn on Constitution Day, May 17.