Travel to Norway

Norway is well known for its amazing and varied scenery. The gulfs, many high mountains on both sides, in the west are long and narrow. Norway was an old Viking kingdom. Economically it is known for its oil and seafood exports. Norway is a country with low population which is about only 4.76 million while its land area is as equal as Great Britain and Germany, about 385,155 square kilometers. Thus, for each inhabitant, there is 70,000 square meters of land. But the vast majority of the land is a rocky wilderness which is completely unusable for agricultural purposes. As a result, Norway has a large number of completely unpopulated areas, many of which have been converted to national parks.

In winter, cross-country skiing, alpine skiing and snowboarding are very popular. In summer, hiking and biking are good sports. For some people who love adventure, kayaking, rafting, cave or glacier exploration are good choices. Car tourists usually enjoy driving along the gulf and mountains. In short, Norway has a lot to offer you in terms of nature. Norwegians are very proud of their national parks which they strive to keep unspoiled.

You can see the polar day and polar night in north Norway. But you cannot see this marvelous sight in south Norway. The midsummer night of Oslo is very short, even simply does not have darkness. Norway is a Christianity country where the Luther churches belong to the government institutions. Christmas day and Easter are so significant holidays that many Norwegians will be away from work for one week or more.

Norway is more called as a Scandinavian country due to its position in the northern most part of Europe. It is one of the most beautiful of all the Scandinavian countries. Following are the facts and précis of its background, you need to know before you makeup your mind of going there.

Norway’s official name is the kingdom of Norway and the country covers the mainland area and the associated islands. The overall area of this country is somewhere around 150,000 square miles. In other words, it can be said that the area of Norway is slightly more than the area of New Mexico State of America. The capital of this country is Oslo and this is also the biggest city in entire Norway with population of more than 520,000. Some of the other big cities of Norway are Bergen, Trondheim with population of around 150,000 and Stavanger with population of 110,000.

The topography of Norway is not that much friendly and can be called very intense. It contains some very high plateaus, steep fjords, mountains and some very fertile valleys. The climate is also full of varieties and it can be very pleasant around the coastal areas and surprisingly cooler in the inner part of the country. Because of its northern most position on the globe, it experiences long days during summer season and long nights during winter season. During summer, you can witness sunlight until the midnight and therefore, Norway is also known as the land of midnight sun.

As far as the people of Norway are concerned, they are very friendly. People living there are known as Norwegians. As per the latest population count, which was held in 2006, the population of Norway was 4,593,000. The population is not increasing very fast as the annual growth rate is only .41 percent. A surprising fact is that there is only one person for every 15 square miles of land. Most of the people living in Norway are the blend of people from all the Scandinavian countries. The main majority is the mix of Nordic, Alpine and Baltic people who have intermixed with each other for centuries now. People of Norway do not believe in migrating to some other place hence, the immigration rate is very low. It was registered that there were only 300,000 immigrants in 2006.

From the religion point of view, Norwegians are very particular and finicky. More than 87 percent of total of Norwegian people believe in Christianity as their religion and have very firm faith on the church of Norway. The church of Norway is under the Lutheran concept of preaching. Although, Christianity is the widely spread religion but you can also find some Pentecostal Christians, Roman Catholics and Muslims in very small percentages.

Norwegians basically speak two languages i.e. Bokmal Norwegian and Nynorsk. However Norwegian is widely spoken and is the chief language which is taught in the school system. But still, some Sámi and Finish speaking communities can also be found here but not much in number. The literacy of Norway is very close to 100 percent. Also, the life expectancy is very high as the Norwegian male can live up to 76 years and females there can live up to 81 years.