Denmark–Norway
Denmark–Norway known as the Dano–Norwegian Realm, the Oldenburg Monarchy or the Oldenburg realms, was an early modern multi-national and multi-lingual real union consisting of the Kingdom of Denmark, the Kingdom of Norway, the Duchy of Schleswig, the Duchy of Holstein. The state claimed sovereignty over two historical peoples: Wends and Goths. Denmark–Norway had several colonies, namely the Danish Gold Coast, the Nicobar Islands, Serampore and the Danish West Indies; the state's inhabitants were Danes and Germans, included Faroese and Inuit in the Norwegian overseas possessions, a Sami minority in northern Norway, as well as indigenous peoples and enslaved Africans in the colonies. The main cities of Denmark–Norway were Copenhagen, Altona and Trondheim, the primary official languages were Danish and German, but Norwegian, Faroese and Greenlandic were spoken locally. In 1380, Olaf II of Denmark inherited the Kingdom of Norway, titled as Olaf IV, after the death of his father Haakon VI of Norway, married to Olaf's mother Margrete I.
Margrete I was ruler of Norway from her son's death in 1387 until her own death in 1412. Denmark and Sweden established and formed the Kalmar Union in 1397. Following Sweden's departure in 1523, the union was dissolved. From 1536/1537, Denmark and Norway formed a personal union that would develop into the 1660 integrated state called Denmark–Norway by modern historians, at the time sometimes referred to as the "Twin Kingdoms," "the Monarchy" or "His Majesty". Prior to 1660, Denmark–Norway was de jure a constitutional and elective monarchy in which the King's power was somewhat limited. After 1660, Denmark–Norway consisted of three formally separate parts, Norway kept its separate laws and some institutions, separate coinage and army; the Dano-Norwegian union lasted until 1814, when the Treaty of Kiel decreed that Norway be ceded to Sweden. The treaty however, was not recognised by Norway, which resisted the attempt in the 1814 Swedish–Norwegian War. Norway thereafter entered into a much looser personal union with Sweden as one of two equal kingdoms through 1905, when the union was dissolved and both kingdoms became independent.
The term "Kingdom of Denmark" is sometimes used to include both countries in the period, since the political and economic power emanated from the Danish capital, Copenhagen. These terms cover the "royal territories" of the Oldenburgs as it was in 1460, excluding the "ducal territories" of Schleswig and Holstein; the administration used two official languages and German, for several centuries both a Danish and German Chancery existed. The term "Denmark -- Norway" reflects the legal roots of the union, it is adopted from the Oldenburg dynasty's official title. The kings always used the style "King of Denmark and Norway, the Wends and the Goths". Denmark and Norway, sometimes referred to as the "Twin Realms" of Denmark–Norway, had separate legal codes and currencies, separate governing institutions. Following the introduction of absolutism in 1660, the centralisation of government meant a concentration of institutions in Copenhagen. Centralisation was supported in many parts of Norway, where the two-year attempt by Sweden to control Trøndelag had met strong local resistance and resulted in a complete failure for the Swedes and a devastation of the province.
This allowed Norway to further secure itself militarily for the future through closer ties with the capital Copenhagen. The term "Sweden–Finland" is sometimes, although with less justification, applied to the contemporary Swedish realm between 1521 and 1809. Finland was never a separate kingdom, was integrated with Sweden, while Denmark was the dominant component in a personal union. Throughout the time of Denmark–Norway, it continuously had possession over various overseas territories. At the earliest times this meant areas in Northern Europe and North America, for instance Estonia and the Norwegian possessions of Greenland, the Faroe Islands and Iceland. From the 17th century, the kingdoms acquired colonies in the Caribbean and India. At its height the empire was about 2,655,564.76 km2 Denmark–Norway maintained numerous colonies from the 17th to 19th centuries over various parts around India. Colonies included the town of Serampore; the last towns it had control over were sold to the United Kingdom in 1845.
Rights in the Nicobar Islands were sold in 1869. Centred on the Virgin Islands, Denmark–Norway established the Danish West Indies; this colony was one of the longest-lived of Denmark, until it was sold to the United States in 1917. It became the U. S. Virgin Islands. In the Gold Coast region of West Africa, Denmark–Norway over time had control over various colonies and forts; the last remaining forts were sold to the United Kingdom in 1850. The three kingdoms united in the Kalmar Union in 1397. Sweden broke out of this union and re-entered it several times, until 1521, when Sweden left the Union, leaving Denmark–Norway; the outbreak of the Northern Seven Years' War in 1563 is attributed to Denmark's displeasure over the dismantling of the Kalmar Union in the 1520s. When the Danish-Norwegian king Christian III included the tr
Rift
In geology, a rift is a linear zone where the lithosphere is being pulled apart and is an example of extensional tectonics. Typical rift features are a central linear downfaulted depression, called a graben, or more a half-graben with normal faulting and rift-flank uplifts on one side. Where rifts remain above sea level they form a rift valley, which may be filled by water forming a rift lake; the axis of the rift area may contain volcanic rocks, active volcanism is a part of many, but not all active rift systems. Major rifts occur along the central axis of most mid-ocean ridges, where new oceanic crust and lithosphere is created along a divergent boundary between two tectonic plates. Failed rifts are the result of continental rifting; the transition from rifting to spreading develops at a triple junction where three converging rifts meet over a hotspot. Two of these evolve to the point of seafloor spreading, while the third fails, becoming an aulacogen. Most rifts consist of a series of separate segments that together form the linear zone characteristic of rifts.
The individual rift segments have a dominantly half-graben geometry, controlled by a single basin-bounding fault. Segment lengths vary depending on the elastic thickness of the lithosphere. Areas of thick colder lithosphere, such as the Baikal Rift have segment lengths in excess of 80 km, while in areas of warmer thin lithosphere, segment lengths may be less than 30 km. Along the axis of the rift the position, in some cases the polarity, of the main rift bounding fault changes from segment to segment. Segment boundaries have a more complex structure and cross the rift axis at a high angle; these segment boundary zones accommodate the differences in fault displacement between the segments and are therefore known as accommodation zones. Accommodation zones take various forms, from a simple relay ramp at the overlap between two major faults of the same polarity, to zones of high structural complexity where the segments have opposite polarity. Accommodation zones may be located. In the Gulf of Suez rift, the Zaafarana accommodation zone is located where a shear zone in the Arabian-Nubian Shield meets the rift.
Rift flanks or shoulders are elevated areas around rifts. Rift shoulders are about 70 km wide. Contrary to what was thought, elevated passive continental margins such as the Brazilian Highlands, the Scandinavian Mountains and India's Western Ghats, are not rift shoulders. At the onset of rifting, the upper part of the lithosphere starts to extend on a series of unconnected normal faults, leading to the development of isolated basins. In subaerial rifts, drainage at this stage is internal, with no element of through drainage; as the rift evolves, some of the individual fault segments grow becoming linked together to form the larger bounding faults. Subsequent extension becomes concentrated on these faults; the longer faults and wider fault spacing leads to more continuous areas of fault-related subsidence along the rift axis. Significant uplift of the rift shoulders develops at this stage influencing drainage and sedimentation in the rift basins. During the climax of lithospheric rifting, as the crust is thinned, the Earth's surface subsides and the Moho becomes correspondingly raised.
At the same time, the mantle lithosphere becomes thinned, causing a rise of the top of the asthenosphere. This brings high heat flow from the upwelling asthenosphere into the thinning lithosphere, heating the orogenic lithosphere for dehydration melting causing extreme metamorphism at high thermal gradients of greater than 30 °C; the metamorphic products are high to ultrahigh temperature granulites and their associated migmatite and granites in collisional orogens, with possible emplacement of metamorphic core complexes in continental rift zones but oceanic core complexes in spreading ridges. This leads to a kind of orogeneses in extensional settings, referred as to rifting orogeny. Once rifting ceases, the mantle beneath the rift cools and this is accompanied by a broad area of post-rift subsidence; the amount of subsidence is directly related to the amount of thinning during the rifting phase calculated as the beta factor, but is affected by the degree to which the rift basin is filled at each stage, due to the greater density of sediments in contrast to water.
The simple'McKenzie model' of rifting, which considers the rifting stage to be instantaneous, provides a good first order estimate of the amount of crustal thinning from observations of the amount of post-rift subsidence. This has been replaced by the'flexural cantilever model', which takes into account the geometry of the rift faults and the flexural isostasy of the upper part of the crust; some rifts show a complex and prolonged history with several distinct phases. The North Sea rift shows evidence of several separate rift phases from the Permian through to the Earliest Cretaceous, a period of over 100 million years. Many rifts are the sites of at least minor magmatic activity in the early stages of rifting. Alkali basalts and bimodal volcanism are common products of rift-related magmatism. Recent studies indicate that post-collisional granites in collisional orogens are the product of rifting magmatism at converged plate margins; the sedimentary rocks associated with continental rifts host important deposits of both minerals and hydrocarbons.
SedEx mineral deposits are found in continental rift settings. They form within post-rift sequences when hydrothermal fluids associated
Cambrian
The Cambrian Period was the first geological period of the Paleozoic Era, of the Phanerozoic Eon. The Cambrian lasted 55.6 million years from the end of the preceding Ediacaran Period 541 million years ago to the beginning of the Ordovician Period 485.4 mya. Its subdivisions, its base, are somewhat in flux; the period was established by Adam Sedgwick, who named it after Cambria, the Latin name of Wales, where Britain's Cambrian rocks are best exposed. The Cambrian is unique in its unusually high proportion of lagerstätte sedimentary deposits, sites of exceptional preservation where "soft" parts of organisms are preserved as well as their more resistant shells; as a result, our understanding of the Cambrian biology surpasses that of some periods. The Cambrian marked a profound change in life on Earth. Complex, multicellular organisms became more common in the millions of years preceding the Cambrian, but it was not until this period that mineralized—hence fossilized—organisms became common; the rapid diversification of life forms in the Cambrian, known as the Cambrian explosion, produced the first representatives of all modern animal phyla.
Phylogenetic analysis has supported the view that during the Cambrian radiation, metazoa evolved monophyletically from a single common ancestor: flagellated colonial protists similar to modern choanoflagellates. Although diverse life forms prospered in the oceans, the land is thought to have been comparatively barren—with nothing more complex than a microbial soil crust and a few molluscs that emerged to browse on the microbial biofilm. Most of the continents were dry and rocky due to a lack of vegetation. Shallow seas flanked the margins of several continents created during the breakup of the supercontinent Pannotia; the seas were warm, polar ice was absent for much of the period. Despite the long recognition of its distinction from younger Ordovician rocks and older Precambrian rocks, it was not until 1994 that the Cambrian system/period was internationally ratified; the base of the Cambrian lies atop a complex assemblage of trace fossils known as the Treptichnus pedum assemblage. The use of Treptichnus pedum, a reference ichnofossil to mark the lower boundary of the Cambrian, is difficult since the occurrence of similar trace fossils belonging to the Treptichnids group are found well below the T. pedum in Namibia and Newfoundland, in the western USA.
The stratigraphic range of T. pedum overlaps the range of the Ediacaran fossils in Namibia, in Spain. The Cambrian Period was followed by the Ordovician Period; the Cambrian is divided into ten ages. Only three series and six stages are named and have a GSSP; because the international stratigraphic subdivision is not yet complete, many local subdivisions are still used. In some of these subdivisions the Cambrian is divided into three series with locally differing names – the Early Cambrian, Middle Cambrian and Furongian. Rocks of these epochs are referred to as belonging to Upper Cambrian. Trilobite zones allow biostratigraphic correlation in the Cambrian; each of the local series is divided into several stages. The Cambrian is divided into several regional faunal stages of which the Russian-Kazakhian system is most used in international parlance: *Most Russian paleontologists define the lower boundary of the Cambrian at the base of the Tommotian Stage, characterized by diversification and global distribution of organisms with mineral skeletons and the appearance of the first Archaeocyath bioherms.
The International Commission on Stratigraphy list the Cambrian period as beginning at 541 million years ago and ending at 485.4 million years ago. The lower boundary of the Cambrian was held to represent the first appearance of complex life, represented by trilobites; the recognition of small shelly fossils before the first trilobites, Ediacara biota earlier, led to calls for a more defined base to the Cambrian period. After decades of careful consideration, a continuous sedimentary sequence at Fortune Head, Newfoundland was settled upon as a formal base of the Cambrian period, to be correlated worldwide by the earliest appearance of Treptichnus pedum. Discovery of this fossil a few metres below the GSSP led to the refinement of this statement, it is the T. pedum ichnofossil assemblage, now formally used to correlate the base of the Cambrian. This formal designation allowed radiometric dates to be obtained from samples across the globe that corresponded to the base of the Cambrian. Early dates of 570 million years ago gained favour, though the methods used to obtain this number are now considered to be unsuitable and inaccurate.
A more precise date using modern radiometric dating yield a date of 541 ± 0.3 million years ago. The ash horizon in Oman from which this date was recovered corresponds to a marked fall in the abundance of carbon-13 that correlates to equivalent excursions elsewhere in the world, to the disappearance of distinctive Ediacaran fossils. There are arguments that the dated horizon in Oman does not correspond to the Ediacaran-Cambrian boundary, but represents a facies change from marine to evaporite-dominated strata — which w
Mudstone
Mudstone, a type of mudrock, is a fine-grained sedimentary rock whose original constituents were clays or muds. Grain size is up to 0.063 millimetres with individual grains too small to be distinguished without a microscope. With increased pressure over time, the platy clay minerals may become aligned, with the appearance of fissility or parallel layering; this finely bedded material that splits into thin layers is called shale, as distinct from mudstone. The lack of fissility or layering in mudstone may be due to either original texture or the disruption of layering by burrowing organisms in the sediment prior to lithification. Mud rocks such as mudstone and shale account for some 65% of all sedimentary rocks. Mudstone looks like hardened clay and, depending upon the circumstances under which it was formed, it may show cracks or fissures, like a sun-baked clay deposit. Mudstone can be separated into these categories: Siltstone — more than half of the composition is silt-sized particles. Claystone — more than half of the composition is clay-sized particles.
Mudstone — hardened mud. Mudstone can include: Shale -- exhibits fissility. Argillite — has undergone low-grade metamorphism. In the Dunham classification system of limestones, a mudstone is defined as a mud-supported carbonate rock that contains less than 10% grains. Most this definition has been clarified as a matrix-supported carbonate-dominated rock composed of more than 90% carbonate mud component. A recent study by Lokier and Al Junaibi has highlighted that the most common problems encountered when describing a mudstone is to incorrectly estimate the volume of'grains' in the sample - in consequence, misidentifying mudstone as wackestone and vice versa; the original Dunham classification defined the matrix as clay and fine-silt size sediment <20 μm in diameter. This definition was redefined by Embry & Klovan to a grain size of less than or equal to 30 μm. Wright proposed a further increase to the upper limit for the matrix size in order to bring it into line with the upper limit for silt.
On December 13, 2016, NASA reported further evidence supporting habitability on the planet Mars as the Curiosity rover climbed higher, studying younger layers, on Mount Sharp. Reported, the soluble element boron was detected for the first time on Mars. In June 2018, NASA reported that Curiosity had detected kerogen and other complex organic compounds from mudstone rocks 3.5 billion years old. Mudstone on planet Mars Aeolis quadrangle Composition of Mars Timeline of Mars Science Laboratory Tonstein – A hard, compact sedimentary rock, composed of kaolinite or, less other clay minerals
Oslofjord
The Oslofjord is an inlet in the south-east of Norway, stretching from an imaginary line between the Torbjørnskjær and Færder lighthouses and down to Langesund in the south to Oslo in the north. It is part of the Skagerrak strait, connecting the North Sea and the Kattegat sea area, which leads to the Baltic Sea; the Oslofjord is not a fjord in the geological sense — in Norwegian the term fjord can refer to a wide range of waterways. The bay is divided into the inner and outer Oslofjord at the point of the 17 by 1 kilometre Drøbak Sound. In the period 1624–1925 the name of the fjord was Kristianiafjorden, since Christiania was the name of the capital in this period; the old Norse name of the fjord was Fold, giving names to the counties of Vestfold and Østfold — and the district Follo. Each of the islands in the innermost part of the fjord has its own identity and distinguishing history. Among them are Hovedøya, Lindøya, Bleikøya, Langøyene; these islands can be reached with the Oslo-boats from Aker Brygge.
Hovedøya contains monastery ruins, Gressholmen for its rabbits, Bleikøya, Lindøya for their cosy cabins at the water’s edge, Langøyene for its camping possibilities and beach. The inner part of the Oslofjord has forest covered hill slopes down towards the fjord; the Oslofjord has Norway’s highest all year temperature: 7.5 degrees Celsius. February is the coldest month in the fjord with -1.3 degrees Celsius, while July has 17.2 degrees Celsius. The islands in the middle of the fjord are among Norway’s warmest with high summer temperatures and moderate winters. Oslofjord’s high temperatures enable various flora to flourish; the oldest settlements in the area surrounding the Oslofjord date from the Stone Age and the Bronze Age. It was here on the eastern and western shores that three of the best preserved Viking ships were unearthed. In historical times, this bay was known by the current name of Viken. Oslofjord has been an important body of water strategically due to its proximity to Oslo. During WWII, there were German installations at several points on its coastline.
One installation in Hovedøya held 1,100 Wehrmacht soldiers and women deemed Nazi collaborators at the National Internment Camp for Women in Hovedøya. Norwegian painter Edvard Munch had a cottage and studio in Åsgårdstrand on the fjord and the Oslofjord appears in several of his paintings, including The Scream and Girls on the Pier; the fjord was the scene of a key event in the German invasion of Norway in April 1940, the Battle of Drøbak Sound. The invasion included a planned landing of 1,000 troops transported by ship to Oslo. Colonel Eriksen, Commander of the Oscarsborg fortress near Drøbak maintained for historical purposes, sank the German heavy cruiser Blücher in the Drøbak narrows; the fortress's resistance blocked the route to Oslo, thus delaying the rest of the group long enough for the royal family, government and national treasury to be evacuated. The result was that Norway never surrendered to the Germans, leaving the Quisling government illegitimate and permitting Norway to participate as an ally in the war, rather than as a conquered nation.
The entire population situated around the Oslofjord including Oslo is about 1.96 million, the total population of all the counties situated around the fjord is 2.2 million. More than 40% of Norway’s population resides under 45 minutes of driving from the Oslofjord; the Oslofjord has Norway’s busiest traffic of ferries and cargo boats. Although the Oslofjord contains hundreds of populated islands, most of the population of the fjord resides on the mainland. In the summer there are boats of all sizes on the fjord, it is possible to go kayaking, canoeing and sailing; the Oslofjord is one of the nine venues of the Class 1 World Powerboat Championship
Ordovician
The Ordovician is a geologic period and system, the second of six periods of the Paleozoic Era. The Ordovician spans 41.2 million years from the end of the Cambrian Period 485.4 million years ago to the start of the Silurian Period 443.8 Mya. The Ordovician, named after the Celtic tribe of the Ordovices, was defined by Charles Lapworth in 1879 to resolve a dispute between followers of Adam Sedgwick and Roderick Murchison, who were placing the same rock beds in northern Wales into the Cambrian and Silurian systems, respectively. Lapworth recognized that the fossil fauna in the disputed strata were different from those of either the Cambrian or the Silurian systems, placed them in a system of their own; the Ordovician received international approval in 1960, when it was adopted as an official period of the Paleozoic Era by the International Geological Congress. Life continued to flourish during the Ordovician as it did in the earlier Cambrian period, although the end of the period was marked by the Ordovician–Silurian extinction events.
Invertebrates, namely molluscs and arthropods, dominated the oceans. The Great Ordovician Biodiversification Event increased the diversity of life. Fish, the world's first true vertebrates, continued to evolve, those with jaws may have first appeared late in the period. Life had yet to diversify on land. About 100 times as many meteorites struck the Earth per year during the Ordovician compared with today; the Ordovician Period began with a major extinction called the Cambrian–Ordovician extinction event, about 485.4 Mya. It lasted for about 42 million years and ended with the Ordovician–Silurian extinction events, about 443.8 Mya which wiped out 60% of marine genera. The dates given are recent radiometric dates and vary from those found in other sources; this second period of the Paleozoic era created abundant fossils that became major petroleum and gas reservoirs. The boundary chosen for the beginning of both the Ordovician Period and the Tremadocian stage is significant, it correlates well with the occurrence of widespread graptolite and trilobite species.
The base of the Tremadocian allows scientists to relate these species not only to each other, but to species that occur with them in other areas. This makes it easier to place many more species in time relative to the beginning of the Ordovician Period. A number of regional terms have been used to subdivide the Ordovician Period. In 2008, the ICS erected a formal international system of subdivisions. There exist Baltoscandic, Siberian, North American, Chinese Mediterranean and North-Gondwanan regional stratigraphic schemes; the Ordovician Period in Britain was traditionally broken into Early and Late epochs. The corresponding rocks of the Ordovician System are referred to as coming from the Lower, Middle, or Upper part of the column; the faunal stages from youngest to oldest are: Late Ordovician Hirnantian/Gamach Rawtheyan/Richmond Cautleyan/Richmond Pusgillian/Maysville/Richmond Middle Ordovician Trenton Onnian/Maysville/Eden Actonian/Eden Marshbrookian/Sherman Longvillian/Sherman Soudleyan/Kirkfield Harnagian/Rockland Costonian/Black River Chazy Llandeilo Whiterock Llanvirn Early Ordovician Cassinian Arenig/Jefferson/Castleman Tremadoc/Deming/Gaconadian The Tremadoc corresponds to the Tremadocian.
The Floian corresponds to the lower Arenig. The Llanvirn occupies the rest of the Darriwilian, terminates with it at the base of the Late Ordovician; the Sandbian represents the first half of the Caradoc. During the Ordovician, the southern continents were collected into Gondwana. Gondwana started the period in equatorial latitudes and, as the period progressed, drifted toward the South Pole. Early in the Ordovician, the continents of Laurentia and Baltica were still independent continents, but Baltica began to move towards Laurentia in the period, causing the Iapetus Ocean between them to shrink; the small continent Avalonia separated from Gondwana and began to move north towards Baltica and Laurentia, opening the Rheic Ocean between Gondwana and Avalonia. The Taconic orogeny, a major mountain-building episode, was well under way in Cambrian times. In the early and middle Ordovician, temperatures were mild, but at the beginning of the Late Ordovician, from 460 to 450 Ma, volcanoes along the margin of the Iapetus Ocean spewed massive amounts of carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas, into the atmosphere, turning the planet into a hothouse.
Sea levels were high, but as Gondwana moved south, ice accumulated into glaciers and sea levels dropped. At first, low-lying sea beds increased diversity, but glaciation led to mass extinctions as the seas drained and continental shelves became dry land. During the Ordovician, in fact during the Tremadocian, marine transgressions worldwide were the greatest for which evidence is preserved; these volcanic island arcs collided with proto North America to form the Appalachian mountains. By the end of the Late Ordovician the volcanic emissions had stopped. Gondwana had by that time neared the South Pole and was glaciated
Norway
Norway the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe whose territory comprises the western and northernmost portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula. The Antarctic Peter I Island and the sub-Antarctic Bouvet Island are dependent territories and thus not considered part of the kingdom. Norway lays claim to a section of Antarctica known as Queen Maud Land. Norway has a total area of 385,207 square kilometres and a population of 5,312,300; the country shares a long eastern border with Sweden. Norway is bordered by Finland and Russia to the north-east, the Skagerrak strait to the south, with Denmark on the other side. Norway has an extensive coastline, facing the Barents Sea. Harald V of the House of Glücksburg is the current King of Norway. Erna Solberg has been prime minister since 2013. A unitary sovereign state with a constitutional monarchy, Norway divides state power between the parliament, the cabinet and the supreme court, as determined by the 1814 constitution; the kingdom was established in 872 as a merger of a large number of petty kingdoms and has existed continuously for 1,147 years.
From 1537 to 1814, Norway was a part of the Kingdom of Denmark-Norway, from 1814 to 1905, it was in a personal union with the Kingdom of Sweden. Norway was neutral during the First World War. Norway remained neutral until April 1940 when the country was invaded and occupied by Germany until the end of Second World War. Norway has both administrative and political subdivisions on two levels: counties and municipalities; the Sámi people have a certain amount of self-determination and influence over traditional territories through the Sámi Parliament and the Finnmark Act. Norway maintains close ties with both the United States. Norway is a founding member of the United Nations, NATO, the European Free Trade Association, the Council of Europe, the Antarctic Treaty, the Nordic Council. Norway maintains the Nordic welfare model with universal health care and a comprehensive social security system, its values are rooted in egalitarian ideals; the Norwegian state has large ownership positions in key industrial sectors, having extensive reserves of petroleum, natural gas, lumber and fresh water.
The petroleum industry accounts for around a quarter of the country's gross domestic product. On a per-capita basis, Norway is the world's largest producer of oil and natural gas outside of the Middle East; the country has the fourth-highest per capita income in the world on the World IMF lists. On the CIA's GDP per capita list which includes autonomous territories and regions, Norway ranks as number eleven, it has the world's largest sovereign wealth fund, with a value of US$1 trillion. Norway has had the highest Human Development Index ranking in the world since 2009, a position held between 2001 and 2006, it had the highest inequality-adjusted ranking until 2018 when Iceland moved to the top of the list. Norway ranked first on the World Happiness Report for 2017 and ranks first on the OECD Better Life Index, the Index of Public Integrity, the Democracy Index. Norway has one of the lowest crime rates in the world. Norway has two official names: Norge in Noreg in Nynorsk; the English name Norway comes from the Old English word Norþweg mentioned in 880, meaning "northern way" or "way leading to the north", how the Anglo-Saxons referred to the coastline of Atlantic Norway similar to scientific consensus about the origin of the Norwegian language name.
The Anglo-Saxons of Britain referred to the kingdom of Norway in 880 as Norðmanna land. There is some disagreement about whether the native name of Norway had the same etymology as the English form. According to the traditional dominant view, the first component was norðr, a cognate of English north, so the full name was Norðr vegr, "the way northwards", referring to the sailing route along the Norwegian coast, contrasting with suðrvegar "southern way" for, austrvegr "eastern way" for the Baltic. In the translation of Orosius for Alfred, the name is Norðweg, while in younger Old English sources the ð is gone. In the 10th century many Norsemen settled in Northern France, according to the sagas, in the area, called Normandy from norðmann, although not a Norwegian possession. In France normanni or northmanni referred to people of Sweden or Denmark; until around 1800 inhabitants of Western Norway where referred to as nordmenn while inhabitants of Eastern Norway where referred to as austmenn. According to another theory, the first component was a word nór, meaning "narrow" or "northern", referring to the inner-archipelago sailing route through the land.
The interpretation as "northern", as reflected in the English and Latin forms of the name, would have been due to folk etymology. This latter view originated with philologist Niels Halvorsen Trønnes in 1847; the form Nore is still used in placenames such as the village of Nore and lake Norefjorden in Buskerud county, still has the same meaning. Among other arguments in favour of the theor
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