Visiting Norway
For travel guide for Norway and practical advice regarding eating, drinking, shopping, how to get around, price levels on lodging and holiday accomodation (e.g. hotels, vacation rentals by owner, b&b's, vacation rental homes, holiday villas, condos, cabins, hostels, self-catering cottages) and safety hints please click here.

Norway facts, geography & history

Facts
Government: Constitutional monarchy.
Population (est.): 4,610,820.
Capital, population (est.): Oslo, 791,500.
Principal languages: Bokmål Norwegian, Nynorsk Norwegian (both official); small Sami- and Finnish-speaking minorities (Sami is official in six municipalities).
Monetary unit: Norwegian krone.

Geography
Norway comprises the western part of Scandinavia in Northern Europe. The rugged coastline, broken by massive fjords and thousands of islands, stretches over 25,000 km. Norway shares a 2,542 km land border with Sweden, Finland, and Russia to the east. To the west and south, Norway is bordered by the Norwegian Sea, the North Sea, and Skagerak. The Barents Sea washes on Norway's northern coasts.
At 385,155 km² (including Jan Mayen, Svalbard), Norway is approximately the size of Germany, but much of the country is dominated by mountainous or high terrain, with a great variety of natural features caused by prehistoric glaciers and varied topography. The most noticeable of these are the fjords, deep grooves cut into the land flooded by the sea following the end of the ice age; the longest is Sognefjorden. Norway also contains many glaciers and waterfalls.
The land is mostly made of hard granite and gneiss rock, but slate, sandstone and limestone are also common, and the lowest elevations have marine deposits. Due to the Gulf Stream and prevailing westerlies, Norway experiences warmer temperatures and more precipitation than expected at such northern latitudes, especially along the coast. The mainland experiences four distinct seasons, with colder winters and less precipitation inland. The northernmost part has a mostly maritime subarctic climate, while Svalbard has an arctic tundra climate.
There are large seasonal variations in daylight. In areas north of the Arctic Circle, the summer sun may never completely descend beneath the horizon, hence Norway's description as the "Land of the Midnight Sun." During summer, inhabitants south of the Arctic Circle still experience sunlight nearly 20 of the day's twenty-four hours.............
Adopted from and read more at: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norway

History
If you are interested in this country's history, please take a look here.