1.
Sweden
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Sweden, officially the Kingdom of Sweden, is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe. It borders Norway to the west and Finland to the east, at 450,295 square kilometres, Sweden is the third-largest country in the European Union by area, with a total population of 10.0 million. Sweden consequently has a low density of 22 inhabitants per square kilometre. Approximately 85% of the lives in urban areas. Germanic peoples have inhabited Sweden since prehistoric times, emerging into history as the Geats/Götar and Swedes/Svear, Southern Sweden is predominantly agricultural, while the north is heavily forested. Sweden is part of the area of Fennoscandia. The climate is in very mild for its northerly latitude due to significant maritime influence. Today, Sweden is a monarchy and parliamentary democracy, with a monarch as head of state. The capital city is Stockholm, which is also the most populous city in the country, legislative power is vested in the 349-member unicameral Riksdag. Executive power is exercised by the government chaired by the prime minister, Sweden is a unitary state, currently divided into 21 counties and 290 municipalities. Sweden emerged as an independent and unified country during the Middle Ages, in the 17th century, it expanded its territories to form the Swedish Empire, which became one of the great powers of Europe until the early 18th century. Swedish territories outside the Scandinavian Peninsula were gradually lost during the 18th and 19th centuries, the last war in which Sweden was directly involved was in 1814, when Norway was militarily forced into personal union. Since then, Sweden has been at peace, maintaining a policy of neutrality in foreign affairs. The union with Norway was peacefully dissolved in 1905, leading to Swedens current borders, though Sweden was formally neutral through both world wars, Sweden engaged in humanitarian efforts, such as taking in refugees from German-occupied Europe. After the end of the Cold War, Sweden joined the European Union on 1 January 1995 and it is also a member of the United Nations, the Nordic Council, Council of Europe, the World Trade Organization and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. Sweden maintains a Nordic social welfare system that provides health care. The modern name Sweden is derived through back-formation from Old English Swēoþēod and this word is derived from Sweon/Sweonas. The Swedish name Sverige literally means Realm of the Swedes, excluding the Geats in Götaland, the etymology of Swedes, and thus Sweden, is generally not agreed upon but may derive from Proto-Germanic Swihoniz meaning ones own, referring to ones own Germanic tribe
2.
Denmark
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The term Danish Realm refers to the relationship between Denmark proper, the Faroe Islands and Greenland—three countries constituting the Kingdom of Denmark. The legal nature of the Kingdom of Denmark is fundamentally one of a sovereign state. The Faroe Islands and Greenland have been part of the Crown of Denmark since 1397 when the Kalmar Union was ratified, legal matters in The Danish Realm are subject to the Danish Constitution. Beginning in 1953, state law issues within The Danish Realm has been governed by The Unity of the Realm, a less formal name for The Unity of the Realm is the Commonwealth of the Realm. In 1978, The Unity of The Realm was for the first time referred to as rigsfællesskabet. The name caught on and since the 1990s, both The Unity of The Realm and The Danish Realm itself has increasingly been referred to as simply rigsfællesskabet in daily parlance. The Danish Constitution stipulates that the foreign and security interests for all parts of the Danish Realm are the responsibility of the Danish government, the Faroes received home rule in 1948 and Greenland did so in 1979. In 2005, the Faroes received a self-government arrangement, and in 2009 Greenland received self rule, the Danish Realms unique state of internal affairs is acted out in the principle of The Unity of the Realm. This principle is derived from Article 1 of the Danish Constitution which specifies that constitutional law applies equally to all areas of the Danish Realm, the Constitutional Act specifies that sovereignty is to continue to be exclusively with the authorities of the Realm. The language of Denmark is Danish, and the Danish state authorities are based in Denmark, the Kingdom of Denmarks parliament, with its 179 members, is located in the capital, Copenhagen. Two of the members are elected in each of Greenland and the Faroe Islands. The Government ministries are located in Copenhagen, as is the highest court, in principle, the Danish Realm constitutes a unified sovereign state, with equal status between its constituent parts. Devolution differs from federalism in that the powers of the subnational authority ultimately reside in central government. The Self-Government Arrangements devolves political competence and responsibility from the Danish political authorities to the Faroese, the Faroese and Greenlandic authorities administer the tasks taken over from the state, enact legislation in these specific fields and have the economic responsibility for solving these tasks. The Danish government provides a grant to the Faroese and the Greenlandic authorities to cover the costs of these devolved areas. The 1948 Home Rule Act of the Faroe Islands sets out the terms of Faroese home rule, the Act states. the Faroe Islands shall constitute a self-governing community within the State of Denmark. It establishes the government of the Faroe Islands and the Faroese parliament. The Faroe Islands were previously administered as a Danish county, the Home Rule Act abolished the post of Amtmand and these powers were expanded in a 2005 Act, which named the Faroese home government as an equal partner with the Danish government
3.
Scania
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Scania, also known by its local name Skåne, is the southernmost province of Sweden which consists of a peninsula on the southern tip of the Scandinavian Peninsula and some islands close to it. Scania is roughly equivalent to the modern Skåne County, the responsibility for overseeing implementation of state policy in the county is administered by the County Administrative Board. Within Scania there are 33 municipalities that are independent and separate from the Scania Regional Council which has its seat in Kristianstad, the largest city is Malmö, which is also the third largest city in Sweden. To the north, Scania borders the provinces of Halland and Småland, to the northeast Blekinge, to the east and south the Baltic Sea and Bornholm island, since 2000 a road and railway bridge, the Øresund Bridge, bridges the sound to the Danish island of Zealand. The HH Ferry route across the part of Øresund also remains as an important link between the Scandinavian Peninsula and Zealand. Scania is part of the transnational Øresund Region, Scania was part of the kingdom of Denmark up until the Treaty of Roskilde in 1658. The transition to Sweden was later confirmed by the 1660 Treaty of Copenhagen, the 1679 Peace of Lund, the last serious Danish attempt to invade the province failed in 1710, after the Battle of Helsingborg. The period 1658–1720 saw widespread violence by the Swedish militaries against the local population, the same was also true about the Danish military, though to a far lesser extent. The region did not form part of Sweden proper until 1720 and it was then divided in two counties and has since then been regarded as fully integrated in Sweden. Until the early 19th century, a policy of forced assimilation was employed by the Swedish government in what then had been a linguistically Danish region. Controversy relating to whether the Scanian dialects should be classified as a language or as Danish or Swedish dialects remains to this day. From north to south Scania is around 130 kilometres and covers less than 3% of Swedens total area, about 16% of Scanias population is foreign-born. With 120 inh/km2 Scania is the second most densely populated province of Sweden, the western part, along the coast of the Øresund, is by far the most populated part. The endonym used in Swedish and other North Germanic languages is Skåne, the Latinized form Scania occurs especially in British English as an exonym. Scania is the only Swedish province for which exonyms are still used in many languages, e. g. French Scanie, Dutch and German Schonen, Polish Skania, Spanish Escania, Italian Scania. For the provinces modern administrative counterpart, Skåne län, the endonym Skåne is used in English, in the Alfredian translation of Orosiuss and Wulfstans travel accounts, the Old English form Sconeg appears. The names Scania and Scandinavia are considered to have the same etymology, the name is possibly derived from the Germanic root *Skaðin-awjã, which appears in Old Norse as Skáney. According to some scholars, the Germanic stem can be reconstructed as *Skaðan- meaning danger or damage, Skanör in Scania, with its long Falsterbo reef, has the same stem combined with -ör, which means sandbanks
4.
Little Belt
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The Little Belt is a strait between the island of Funen and the Jutland Peninsula in Denmark. It is one of the three Danish Straits that drain and connect the Baltic Sea to the Kattegat strait, which drains west to the North Sea, numerous small Danish islands lie within the belt. In part because of its depth, 10% of the moving between the inner Baltic Sea and the Kattegat flows through the Little Belt. The Little Belt stretches from the town of Juelsminde in the north to the island of Als in the south, with a course in between. The northern end is the widest at over 15 km, from there it runs southwest, narrowing to about 1 km at a place called Snævringen, where the two Little Belt Bridges are located. South of Fænø, the strait widens to about 10 km until it reaches the Baltic Sea near Als, the Little Belts western coastline is largely broken up by irregular inlets called fjords, and both sides feature steep sand bluffs. The area around the Little Belt is shaped by glacial moraines. The notable tunnel valleys were formed by meltwater, the terminal moraines from the northeast ices glacial maximum are some of the oldest in Denmark. The Little Belt is a wetland under the Ramsar Convention. The Little Belt is home to several thousand harbour porpoises, the only resident cetacean in the inner Danish waters, observation tours are accessible nearby as well. Other species such as minke, humpback, and fin whales visit the waters rather sporadically, the deep waters attract many species of fish, including cod, herring, and trout, and the Little Belt is a destination for recreational fishing. Human populations lived around the Little Belt during the Stone Age, hunting aurochs, reindeer, climate and geological changes brought new plants and animals to the area and made the fishery in the fjords and neighboring archipelagoes into an important food source. Around 4000 BC, temperatures rose again, and the Funnelbeaker culture was active in the area, there are many archaeological sites from the Funnelbeaker culture and other Neolithic cultures in the area. Throughout the Bronze Age, Iron Age, and Viking Age, trade with other populations increased, in the 14th century, the towns of Kolding and Vejle received merchant town privileges, and today they are the areas two largest towns. From the Middle Ages until the end of the 19th century, local fishermen were involved in whaling - specifically. Harbor porpoises winter in Danish waterways, and whalers would wait in the parts of the belt. Whale oil from the porpoises was in use as a lamp oil until the spread of electric lighting undermined the whaling economy. In the winter of 1854-55,1,742 porpoises were captured, but otherwise, porpoise whaling was regulated by laws dating to at least 1593
5.
Atlantic Ocean
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The Atlantic Ocean is the second largest of the worlds oceans with a total area of about 106,460,000 square kilometres. It covers approximately 20 percent of the Earths surface and about 29 percent of its surface area. It separates the Old World from the New World, the Atlantic Ocean occupies an elongated, S-shaped basin extending longitudinally between Eurasia and Africa to the east, and the Americas to the west. The Equatorial Counter Current subdivides it into the North Atlantic Ocean, in contrast, the term Atlantic originally referred specifically to the Atlas Mountains in Morocco and the sea off the Strait of Gibraltar and the North African coast. The Greek word thalassa has been reused by scientists for the huge Panthalassa ocean that surrounded the supercontinent Pangaea hundreds of years ago. The term Aethiopian Ocean, derived from Ancient Ethiopia, was applied to the Southern Atlantic as late as the mid-19th century, many Irish or British people refer to the United States and Canada as across the pond, and vice versa. The Black Atlantic refers to the role of ocean in shaping black peoples history. Irish migration to the US is meant when the term The Green Atlantic is used, the term Red Atlantic has been used in reference to the Marxian concept of an Atlantic working class, as well as to the Atlantic experience of indigenous Americans. Correspondingly, the extent and number of oceans and seas varies, the Atlantic Ocean is bounded on the west by North and South America. It connects to the Arctic Ocean through the Denmark Strait, Greenland Sea, Norwegian Sea, to the east, the boundaries of the ocean proper are Europe, the Strait of Gibraltar and Africa. In the southeast, the Atlantic merges into the Indian Ocean, the 20° East meridian, running south from Cape Agulhas to Antarctica defines its border. In the 1953 definition it extends south to Antarctica, while in later maps it is bounded at the 60° parallel by the Southern Ocean, the Atlantic has irregular coasts indented by numerous bays, gulfs, and seas. Including these marginal seas the coast line of the Atlantic measures 111,866 km compared to 135,663 km for the Pacific. Including its marginal seas, the Atlantic covers an area of 106,460,000 km2 or 23. 5% of the ocean and has a volume of 310,410,900 km3 or 23. 3%. Excluding its marginal seas, the Atlantic covers 81,760,000 km2 and has a volume of 305,811,900 km3, the North Atlantic covers 41,490,000 km2 and the South Atlantic 40,270,000 km2. The average depth is 3,646 m and the maximum depth, the bathymetry of the Atlantic is dominated by a submarine mountain range called the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. It runs from 87°N or 300 km south of the North Pole to the subantarctic Bouvet Island at 42°S, the MAR divides the Atlantic longitudinally into two halves, in each of which a series of basins are delimited by secondary, transverse ridges. The MAR reaches above 2000 m along most of its length, the MAR is a barrier for bottom water, but at these two transform faults deep water currents can pass from one side to the other
6.
North Sea
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The North Sea is a marginal sea of the Atlantic Ocean located between Great Britain, Scandinavia, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, and France. An epeiric sea on the European continental shelf, it connects to the ocean through the English Channel in the south and it is more than 970 kilometres long and 580 kilometres wide, with an area of around 570,000 square kilometres. The North Sea has long been the site of important European shipping lanes as well as a major fishery, the North Sea was the centre of the Vikings rise. Subsequently, the Hanseatic League, the Netherlands, and the British each sought to dominate the North Sea and thus the access to the markets, as Germanys only outlet to the ocean, the North Sea continued to be strategically important through both World Wars. The coast of the North Sea presents a diversity of geological and geographical features, in the north, deep fjords and sheer cliffs mark the Norwegian and Scottish coastlines, whereas in the south it consists primarily of sandy beaches and wide mudflats. Due to the population, heavy industrialization, and intense use of the sea and area surrounding it. In the southwest, beyond the Straits of Dover, the North Sea becomes the English Channel connecting to the Atlantic Ocean, in the east, it connects to the Baltic Sea via the Skagerrak and Kattegat, narrow straits that separate Denmark from Norway and Sweden respectively. In the north it is bordered by the Shetland Islands, and connects with the Norwegian Sea, the North Sea is more than 970 kilometres long and 580 kilometres wide, with an area of 570,000 square kilometres and a volume of 54,000 cubic kilometres. Around the edges of the North Sea are sizeable islands and archipelagos, including Shetland, Orkney, the North Sea receives freshwater from a number of European continental watersheds, as well as the British Isles. A large part of the European drainage basin empties into the North Sea including water from the Baltic Sea, the largest and most important rivers flowing into the North Sea are the Elbe and the Rhine – Meuse watershed. Around 185 million people live in the catchment area of the rivers discharging into the North Sea encompassing some highly industrialized areas, for the most part, the sea lies on the European continental shelf with a mean depth of 90 metres. The only exception is the Norwegian trench, which extends parallel to the Norwegian shoreline from Oslo to a north of Bergen. It is between 20 and 30 kilometres wide and has a depth of 725 metres. The Dogger Bank, a vast moraine, or accumulation of unconsolidated glacial debris and this feature has produced the finest fishing location of the North Sea. The Long Forties and the Broad Fourteens are large areas with uniform depth in fathoms. These great banks and others make the North Sea particularly hazardous to navigate, the Devils Hole lies 200 miles east of Dundee, Scotland. The feature is a series of trenches between 20 and 30 kilometres long,1 and 2 kilometres wide and up to 230 metres deep. Other areas which are less deep are Cleaver Bank, Fisher Bank, the International Hydrographic Organization defines the limits of the North Sea as follows, On the Southwest
7.
Copenhagen
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Copenhagen, Danish, København, Latin, Hafnia) is the capital and most populous city of Denmark. Copenhagen has an population of 1,280,371. The Copenhagen metropolitan area has just over 2 million inhabitants, the city is situated on the eastern coast of the island of Zealand, another small portion of the city is located on Amager, and is separated from Malmö, Sweden, by the strait of Øresund. The Øresund Bridge connects the two cities by rail and road, originally a Viking fishing village founded in the 10th century, Copenhagen became the capital of Denmark in the early 15th century. Beginning in the 17th century it consolidated its position as a centre of power with its institutions, defences. After suffering from the effects of plague and fire in the 18th century and this included construction of the prestigious district of Frederiksstaden and founding of such cultural institutions as the Royal Theatre and the Royal Academy of Fine Arts. Later, following the Second World War, the Finger Plan fostered the development of housing, since the turn of the 21st century, Copenhagen has seen strong urban and cultural development, facilitated by investment in its institutions and infrastructure. The city is the cultural, economic and governmental centre of Denmark, Copenhagens economy has seen rapid developments in the service sector, especially through initiatives in information technology, pharmaceuticals and clean technology. Since the completion of the Øresund Bridge, Copenhagen has become integrated with the Swedish province of Scania and its largest city, Malmö. With a number of connecting the various districts, the cityscape is characterized by parks, promenades. Copenhagen is home to the University of Copenhagen, the Technical University of Denmark, the University of Copenhagen, founded in 1479, is the oldest university in Denmark. Copenhagen is home to the FC København and Brøndby football clubs, the annual Copenhagen Marathon was established in 1980. Copenhagen is one of the most bicycle-friendly cities in the world, the Copenhagen Metro serves central Copenhagen while the Copenhagen S-train network connects central Copenhagen to its outlying boroughs. Serving roughly 2 million passengers a month, Copenhagen Airport, Kastrup, is the largest airport in the Nordic countries, the name of the city reflects its origin as a harbour and a place of commerce. The original designation, from which the contemporary Danish name derives, was Køpmannæhafn, meaning merchants harbour, the literal English translation would be Chapmans haven. The English name for the city was adapted from its Low German name, the abbreviations Kbh. or Kbhvn are often used in Danish for København, and kbh. for københavnsk. The chemical element hafnium is named for Copenhagen, where it was discovered, the bacterium Hafnia is also named after Copenhagen, Vagn Møller of the State Serum Institute in Copenhagen named it in 1954. Excavations in Pilestræde have also led to the discovery of a well from the late 12th century, the remains of an ancient church, with graves dating to the 11th century, have been unearthed near where Strøget meets Rådhuspladsen
Sweden
Denmark
