Rea Dan
20-02-2006, 03:19
Factbook
Scandinavian Geography
Scandinavia , region of N Europe. It consists of the kingdoms of Sweden, Norway, and Denmark; Finland and Iceland are usually considered part of Scandinavia. Physiographically, Denmark belongs to the North European Plain rather than to the geologically distinct Scandinavian peninsula (which is part of the ancient Baltic Shield), occupied by Norway and Sweden. Sometimes the word “Norden” is applied to the five countries because it avoids the physiographic and cultural limitations of the word Scandinavia. The Scandinavian peninsula (c.300,000 sq mi/777,000 sq km) is c.1,150 mi (1,850 km) long and from 230 to 500 mi (370–805 km) wide and is bordered by the Gulf of Bothnia, the Baltic Sea, the Kattegat and Skagerrak straits, the North Sea, the Atlantic Ocean, and the Arctic Ocean. It is mountainous in the west (rising to 8,104 ft/2,470 m at Glittertinden, S Norway) and slopes gently in the east and the south. The region was heavily glaciated during the Ice Age; Jostedalsbreen (W Norway), the largest glacier of mainland Europe, is a remnant of the great ice sheet. The peninsula's western coast is deeply indented by fjords. Short, swift-flowing streams drain to the west, while long parallel rivers and numerous lakes are found in the east; Vänern and Vättern, both in S Sweden, are among Europe's largest lakes. Nearly a quarter of the peninsula lies N of the Arctic Circle, reaching its northernmost point in Cape Nordkyn, Norway. The climate varies from tundra and subarctic in the north, to humid continental in the central portion, and to marine west coast in the south and southwest. The region's best farmland is in S Sweden. The peninsula is rich in timber and minerals (notably iron and copper), and has a great hydroelectricity generating capacity. Its coastal waters are important fishing grounds. Large petroleum and natural-gas deposits have been found off Norway's coast in the North Sea and the Atlantic Ocean.
Maps of Norway and Sweden:
http://img83.imageshack.us/img83/9374/swedennorwayc553gu.jpg
http://img46.imageshack.us/img46/9807/nomap9pu.gif http://img46.imageshack.us/img46/9717/swmap5sn.gif
Area:
total: 774,184 sq km
land: 718,794 sq km
water: 55,390 sq km
Climate: temperate in south with cold, cloudy winters and cool, partly cloudy summers; subarctic in north
Scandinavian History
Sweden:
Pre-history
Soon after the recession of the last ice age, Sweden became populated by hunters and gatherers, during the Stone Age (6000 BC – 4000 BC). The region developed rather slowly compared to southern Europe; while the Romans wrote poetry, Scandinavia had just entered the Iron Age.
Sweden was first mentioned in the 1st century, by Roman historian Tacitus, who wrote that the Suiones tribe lived out in the sea and were powerful in both arms and ships. This referred to the inhabitants of eastern Sweden: Svealand, primarily around lake Mälaren; Sigtuna, and Birka. From this tribe, Sweden derived its name. The southern parts, on the other hand, were inhabited by Geats (Götar) in the Götaland territory. Little is known for certain about that time, but chronicles based on Norse sagas and the Beowulf epos go back about 2,000 years.
During the Viking Age of the 9th and 10th century, Swedish vikings travelled east setting their mark on the Baltic countries, Russia whose name comes from the Finnish name for these Vikings: Rus (the Finnish name for Sweden is Ruotsi), the Black Sea, further through the rivers of Russia down south to Constantinople and southern Europe. The Swedish Vikings were somewhat different from their Norwegian and Danish counterparts as they where not as warrior minded as they were merchant and settler minded.
Middle Ages
With Christianization in the 12th century, the country became consolidated, with its centre in the water-ways of the northern Baltic and the Gulf of Finland. In the 14th century Sweden, like the rest of Europe, was struck by the Black Death (the Plague), with all its effect.
During the middle ages, the expansion of Sweden into the northern wilderness of Laplandia, the Scandinavian peninsula, and present-day Finland continued. Finland was a part of Sweden proper from 1362 until 1809.
In 1389, Norway, Denmark and Sweden were united under a single monarch in a treaty known as the Kalmar Union. After several wars and disputes between these nations, King Gustav I of Sweden (House of Vasa) broke free in 1521 and established a nation state, considered the foundation of modern Sweden. Shortly afterwards he rejected Catholicism and led Sweden to the Protestant Reformation. Gustav I is considered to be Sweden's "Father of the Nation."
A Major Power
The 17th century saw the rise of Sweden as one of the great powers in Europe, due to successful participation, initiated by King Gustav II Adolph, in the Thirty Years' War and by Charles X Gustav of Sweden in the The Deluge of Poland. Mighty as it was, it crumbled in the 18th century with Imperial Russia taking the reins of northern Europe in the Great Northern War, and finally in 1809 when the autonomous Grand Duchy of Finland was created out of the eastern half of Sweden.
After Denmark was defeated in the Napoleonic wars, Norway was ceded to Sweden in the Treaty of Kiel. Norway had meanwhile declared itself independent and this led to the Campaign against Norway, which was fought in 1814. It ended with the Convention of Moss, which forced Norway into a union with Sweden that was not dissolved until 1905. But the campaign also signified the last of the Swedish wars and its 200 years of peace are arguably unique in the world today.
Norway:
In the 9th century Norway consisted of a number of petty kingdoms. According to tradition, Harald Fairhair gathered the small kingdoms into one and in 872 with the battle of Hafrsfjord, he established a feudal state.
The Viking age (8th to 11th centuries) was one of national unification and expansion. The Norwegians settled on Iceland, the Faroe Islands, Greenland and parts of the British Islands and attempted to settle at L'Anse aux Meadows in Newfoundland, Canada (it is the Vinland of The Saga of Eric the Red). Norwegians founded the modern day Irish cities of Dublin, Cork, Limerick and Waterford and captured the Anglo-Saxon city of Eoforwic renaming it Jorvik, today known as York. The Norwegian Rollo invaded and was ceded Normandy by the West Frankish king Charles the Simple in 911. Rollo's great-great-great-grandson William the Conqueror successfully invaded and conquered England in 1066.
The Norwegian royal line died out in 1387, partly because of a recession following the Black Plague in 1349, which wiped out the majority of the population, and partly because of royal politics that brought the thrones of Norway, Denmark, and Sweden under the control of Queen Margrethe. The country entered into the Kalmar Union with Denmark and Sweden, and after 1450 remained in a union with Denmark alone that would last until 1814. As Norway was the weaker part of a union that kept all of its royal, intellectual, and administrative power in Copenhagen, Denmark, this period is was in light of the national romanticism in the 19th century sometimes referred to as the "400-Year Night". Other factors also contributed to Norway's decline in this period. With the introduction of Protestantism in 1537, Norway lost the steady stream of pilgrims to the relics of St. Olav at the Nidaros shrine, and with them, much of the contact with the cultural and economic life of the rest of Europe. Additionally, Norway saw its land area decrease in the 17th century with the loss of the provinces Båhuslen, Jemtland, and Herjedalen to Sweden, as a result of the wars between Denmark-Norway and Sweden.
After Denmark-Norway was attacked by England, it entered into an alliance with Napoleon, and in 1814 found itself on the losing side in the Napoleonic Wars and in dire economic conditions. The Dano-Norwegian Oldenburg king was forced to cede Norway to the king of Sweden. Norway took this opportunity to declare her independence, adopted a constitution based on American and French models and elected the Danish crown prince Christian Fredrik as king on 17 May 1814. Nevertheless, Norway was militarily forced into a personal union with Sweden, but kept its liberal constitution and independent institutions, except for the foreign service.
This period also saw the rise of the Norwegian romantic nationalism movement in art and culture, as the Norwegians sought to define and express a distinct national character. The movement covered all branches of culture, including literature (Henrik Wergeland, Maurits Christopher Hansen, Peter Christen Asbjørnsen, Jørgen Moe), painting (Hans Gude, Adolph Tiedemand), music (Edvard Grieg), and even language policy, where attempts to define a native written language for Norway led to today's two official written forms for Norwegian, Bokmål and Nynorsk.
Swedish Politics
Sweden has been a monarchy for almost a millennium, with its taxation controlled by the Riksdag (parliament). It consisted of two chambers, made up by representatives from the 4 estates: clerics, nobility, townsmen and peasants, until 1866 when Sweden became a Constitutional monarchy with a bicameral parliament. Its First Chamber was indirectly elected by local governments, and the Second Chamber directly elected in national elections every four years.
((To be finished when I find more descriptive info on Sweden-Norway))
Scandinavian Geography
Scandinavia , region of N Europe. It consists of the kingdoms of Sweden, Norway, and Denmark; Finland and Iceland are usually considered part of Scandinavia. Physiographically, Denmark belongs to the North European Plain rather than to the geologically distinct Scandinavian peninsula (which is part of the ancient Baltic Shield), occupied by Norway and Sweden. Sometimes the word “Norden” is applied to the five countries because it avoids the physiographic and cultural limitations of the word Scandinavia. The Scandinavian peninsula (c.300,000 sq mi/777,000 sq km) is c.1,150 mi (1,850 km) long and from 230 to 500 mi (370–805 km) wide and is bordered by the Gulf of Bothnia, the Baltic Sea, the Kattegat and Skagerrak straits, the North Sea, the Atlantic Ocean, and the Arctic Ocean. It is mountainous in the west (rising to 8,104 ft/2,470 m at Glittertinden, S Norway) and slopes gently in the east and the south. The region was heavily glaciated during the Ice Age; Jostedalsbreen (W Norway), the largest glacier of mainland Europe, is a remnant of the great ice sheet. The peninsula's western coast is deeply indented by fjords. Short, swift-flowing streams drain to the west, while long parallel rivers and numerous lakes are found in the east; Vänern and Vättern, both in S Sweden, are among Europe's largest lakes. Nearly a quarter of the peninsula lies N of the Arctic Circle, reaching its northernmost point in Cape Nordkyn, Norway. The climate varies from tundra and subarctic in the north, to humid continental in the central portion, and to marine west coast in the south and southwest. The region's best farmland is in S Sweden. The peninsula is rich in timber and minerals (notably iron and copper), and has a great hydroelectricity generating capacity. Its coastal waters are important fishing grounds. Large petroleum and natural-gas deposits have been found off Norway's coast in the North Sea and the Atlantic Ocean.
Maps of Norway and Sweden:
http://img83.imageshack.us/img83/9374/swedennorwayc553gu.jpg
http://img46.imageshack.us/img46/9807/nomap9pu.gif http://img46.imageshack.us/img46/9717/swmap5sn.gif
Area:
total: 774,184 sq km
land: 718,794 sq km
water: 55,390 sq km
Climate: temperate in south with cold, cloudy winters and cool, partly cloudy summers; subarctic in north
Scandinavian History
Sweden:
Pre-history
Soon after the recession of the last ice age, Sweden became populated by hunters and gatherers, during the Stone Age (6000 BC – 4000 BC). The region developed rather slowly compared to southern Europe; while the Romans wrote poetry, Scandinavia had just entered the Iron Age.
Sweden was first mentioned in the 1st century, by Roman historian Tacitus, who wrote that the Suiones tribe lived out in the sea and were powerful in both arms and ships. This referred to the inhabitants of eastern Sweden: Svealand, primarily around lake Mälaren; Sigtuna, and Birka. From this tribe, Sweden derived its name. The southern parts, on the other hand, were inhabited by Geats (Götar) in the Götaland territory. Little is known for certain about that time, but chronicles based on Norse sagas and the Beowulf epos go back about 2,000 years.
During the Viking Age of the 9th and 10th century, Swedish vikings travelled east setting their mark on the Baltic countries, Russia whose name comes from the Finnish name for these Vikings: Rus (the Finnish name for Sweden is Ruotsi), the Black Sea, further through the rivers of Russia down south to Constantinople and southern Europe. The Swedish Vikings were somewhat different from their Norwegian and Danish counterparts as they where not as warrior minded as they were merchant and settler minded.
Middle Ages
With Christianization in the 12th century, the country became consolidated, with its centre in the water-ways of the northern Baltic and the Gulf of Finland. In the 14th century Sweden, like the rest of Europe, was struck by the Black Death (the Plague), with all its effect.
During the middle ages, the expansion of Sweden into the northern wilderness of Laplandia, the Scandinavian peninsula, and present-day Finland continued. Finland was a part of Sweden proper from 1362 until 1809.
In 1389, Norway, Denmark and Sweden were united under a single monarch in a treaty known as the Kalmar Union. After several wars and disputes between these nations, King Gustav I of Sweden (House of Vasa) broke free in 1521 and established a nation state, considered the foundation of modern Sweden. Shortly afterwards he rejected Catholicism and led Sweden to the Protestant Reformation. Gustav I is considered to be Sweden's "Father of the Nation."
A Major Power
The 17th century saw the rise of Sweden as one of the great powers in Europe, due to successful participation, initiated by King Gustav II Adolph, in the Thirty Years' War and by Charles X Gustav of Sweden in the The Deluge of Poland. Mighty as it was, it crumbled in the 18th century with Imperial Russia taking the reins of northern Europe in the Great Northern War, and finally in 1809 when the autonomous Grand Duchy of Finland was created out of the eastern half of Sweden.
After Denmark was defeated in the Napoleonic wars, Norway was ceded to Sweden in the Treaty of Kiel. Norway had meanwhile declared itself independent and this led to the Campaign against Norway, which was fought in 1814. It ended with the Convention of Moss, which forced Norway into a union with Sweden that was not dissolved until 1905. But the campaign also signified the last of the Swedish wars and its 200 years of peace are arguably unique in the world today.
Norway:
In the 9th century Norway consisted of a number of petty kingdoms. According to tradition, Harald Fairhair gathered the small kingdoms into one and in 872 with the battle of Hafrsfjord, he established a feudal state.
The Viking age (8th to 11th centuries) was one of national unification and expansion. The Norwegians settled on Iceland, the Faroe Islands, Greenland and parts of the British Islands and attempted to settle at L'Anse aux Meadows in Newfoundland, Canada (it is the Vinland of The Saga of Eric the Red). Norwegians founded the modern day Irish cities of Dublin, Cork, Limerick and Waterford and captured the Anglo-Saxon city of Eoforwic renaming it Jorvik, today known as York. The Norwegian Rollo invaded and was ceded Normandy by the West Frankish king Charles the Simple in 911. Rollo's great-great-great-grandson William the Conqueror successfully invaded and conquered England in 1066.
The Norwegian royal line died out in 1387, partly because of a recession following the Black Plague in 1349, which wiped out the majority of the population, and partly because of royal politics that brought the thrones of Norway, Denmark, and Sweden under the control of Queen Margrethe. The country entered into the Kalmar Union with Denmark and Sweden, and after 1450 remained in a union with Denmark alone that would last until 1814. As Norway was the weaker part of a union that kept all of its royal, intellectual, and administrative power in Copenhagen, Denmark, this period is was in light of the national romanticism in the 19th century sometimes referred to as the "400-Year Night". Other factors also contributed to Norway's decline in this period. With the introduction of Protestantism in 1537, Norway lost the steady stream of pilgrims to the relics of St. Olav at the Nidaros shrine, and with them, much of the contact with the cultural and economic life of the rest of Europe. Additionally, Norway saw its land area decrease in the 17th century with the loss of the provinces Båhuslen, Jemtland, and Herjedalen to Sweden, as a result of the wars between Denmark-Norway and Sweden.
After Denmark-Norway was attacked by England, it entered into an alliance with Napoleon, and in 1814 found itself on the losing side in the Napoleonic Wars and in dire economic conditions. The Dano-Norwegian Oldenburg king was forced to cede Norway to the king of Sweden. Norway took this opportunity to declare her independence, adopted a constitution based on American and French models and elected the Danish crown prince Christian Fredrik as king on 17 May 1814. Nevertheless, Norway was militarily forced into a personal union with Sweden, but kept its liberal constitution and independent institutions, except for the foreign service.
This period also saw the rise of the Norwegian romantic nationalism movement in art and culture, as the Norwegians sought to define and express a distinct national character. The movement covered all branches of culture, including literature (Henrik Wergeland, Maurits Christopher Hansen, Peter Christen Asbjørnsen, Jørgen Moe), painting (Hans Gude, Adolph Tiedemand), music (Edvard Grieg), and even language policy, where attempts to define a native written language for Norway led to today's two official written forms for Norwegian, Bokmål and Nynorsk.
Swedish Politics
Sweden has been a monarchy for almost a millennium, with its taxation controlled by the Riksdag (parliament). It consisted of two chambers, made up by representatives from the 4 estates: clerics, nobility, townsmen and peasants, until 1866 when Sweden became a Constitutional monarchy with a bicameral parliament. Its First Chamber was indirectly elected by local governments, and the Second Chamber directly elected in national elections every four years.
((To be finished when I find more descriptive info on Sweden-Norway))