1.
Finnmark
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Finnmark is a county in the extreme northeastern part of Norway. By land, it borders Troms county to the west, Finland to the south, and Russia to the east, and by water, the Norwegian Sea to the northwest, the county was formerly known as Finmarkens amt or Vardøhus amt. Since 2002, it has had two names, Finnmark and Finnmárku. It is part of the Sápmi region, which spans four countries, as well as the Barents Region, Vardø, the easternmost municipality in Norway, is located farther east than the cities of St. Petersburg and Istanbul. The Old Norse form of the name was Finnmǫrk, the first element is finn, the Norse name for the Sámi people. The last element is mǫrk which means woodland or borderland, in Norse times the name referred to any places where Sámi people were living. The coat of arms are black with a castle tower, technically described as Sable. The design is from 1967 and shows the old Vardøhus Fortress on the border with Russia. Finnmark is the northernmost and easternmost county in Norway, by area, Finnmark is Norways largest county, even larger than the neighboring country of Denmark. However, with a population of about 75,000, it is also the least populated of all Norwegian counties, Finnmark has a total coastline of 6,844 kilometres, including 3,155 kilometres of coastline on the islands. Nearly 12,300 people or 16.6 percent of the population in 2000 was living in the 100-meter belt along the coastline. Honningsvåg in Finnmark claims to be the northernmost city of the world, the coast is indented by large fjords, many of which are false fjords, as they are not carved out by glaciers. The highest point is located on the top of the glacier Øksfjordjøkelen, which has an area of 45 square kilometres, both Øksfjordjøkelen and Seilandsjøkelen are located in the western part of Finnmark. The Øksfjord plateau glacier calved directly into the sea until 1900, the central and eastern part of Finnmark is generally less mountainous, and has no glaciers. The land east of Nordkapp is mostly below 300 m, the nature varies from barren coastal areas facing the Barents Sea, to more sheltered fjord areas and river valleys with gullies and tree vegetation. About half of the county is above the line. This valley has the highest density of Brown bears in Norway, lynx and moose are common in large parts of Finnmark, but rare on the coast. The interior parts of the county are part of the great Finnmarksvidda plateau, with an elevation of 300 to 400 m, with numerous lakes, the plateau is famous for its tens of thousands of reindeer owned by the Sami, and swarms of mosquitos in mid-summer
2.
Norway
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The Antarctic Peter I Island and the sub-Antarctic Bouvet Island are dependent territories and thus not considered part of the Kingdom. Norway also lays claim to a section of Antarctica known as Queen Maud Land, until 1814, the kingdom included the Faroe Islands, Greenland, and Iceland. It also included Isle of Man until 1266, Shetland and Orkney until 1468, Norway has a total area of 385,252 square kilometres and a population of 5,258,317. The country shares a long border with Sweden. Norway is bordered by Finland and Russia to the north-east, Norway has an extensive coastline, facing the North Atlantic Ocean and the Barents Sea. King Harald V of the Dano-German House of Glücksburg is the current King of Norway, erna Solberg became Prime Minister in 2013, replacing Jens Stoltenberg. A constitutional monarchy, Norway divides state power between the Parliament, the Cabinet and the Supreme Court, as determined by the 1814 Constitution, the kingdom is established as a merger of several petty kingdoms. By the traditional count from the year 872, the kingdom has existed continuously for 1,144 years, Norway has both administrative and political subdivisions on two levels, counties and municipalities. The Sámi people have an amount of self-determination and influence over traditional territories through the Sámi Parliament. Norway maintains close ties with the European Union and the United States, the country maintains a combination of market economy and a Nordic welfare model with universal health care and a comprehensive social security system. Norway has extensive reserves of petroleum, natural gas, minerals, lumber, seafood, the petroleum industry accounts for around a quarter of the countrys gross domestic product. On a per-capita basis, Norway is the worlds largest producer of oil, the country has the fourth-highest per capita income in the world on the World Bank and IMF lists. On the CIAs GDP per capita list which includes territories and some regions, from 2001 to 2006, and then again from 2009 to 2017, Norway had the highest Human Development Index ranking in the world. It also has the highest inequality-adjusted ranking, Norway ranks first on the World Happiness Report, the OECD Better Life Index, the Index of Public Integrity and the Democracy Index. Norway has two names, Noreg in Nynorsk and Norge in Bokmål. The name Norway comes from the Old English word Norðrveg mentioned in 880, meaning way or way leading to the north. In contrasting with suðrvegar southern way for Germany, and austrvegr eastern way for the Baltic, the Anglo-Saxon of Britain also referred to the kingdom of Norway in 880 as Norðmanna land. This was the area of Harald Fairhair, the first king of Norway, and because of him
3.
Cape (geography)
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In geography, a cape is a headland or a promontory of large size extending into a body of water, usually the sea. A cape usually represents a change in trend of the coastline. Their proximity to the makes them prone to natural forms of erosion. This results in capes having a relatively short geologic lifespan, capes can be formed by glaciers, volcanoes, and changes in sea level. Erosion plays a role in each of these methods of formation. Eritrea–Sudan Ras Kasar Ghana Cape Coast Liberia Cape Mesurado - The Cape on which Monrovia is located, separates the Golden Horn Bay from the Sea of Marmara
4.
Northern Norway
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Northern Norway is the geographical region of Norway, consisting of the three northernmost counties Nordland, Troms and Finnmark, in total about 35% of the Norwegian mainland. Some of the largest towns in Northern Norway are Mo i Rana, Bodø, Narvik, Harstad, Tromsø, Northern Norway is often described as the land of the midnight sun and the land of the northern lights. Further north, halfway to the North Pole, is the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard, the region is multi-cultural, housing not just Norwegians but also the indigenous Sami people, Norwegian Finns and Russian populations. Finnish is spoken in only a few communities in the east of Finnmark, Northern Norway covers about a third of Norway. The southernmost part, roughly the part south of the Arctic Circle, is called Helgeland, the inland is covered with dense spruce forests and mountains near the Swedish border, some of the biggest rivers in the region are the Vefsna and the Ranelva. The highest mountain in Northern Norway is found here in the Okstindan range south of Mo i Rana with Oksskolten reaching 1,915 metres above sea level, the Saltfjellet range, with its Svartisen glacier and intersecting Arctic Circle, divides Helgeland from the next region, called Salten. Notable peaks in Salten are the Børvasstindan south of Bodø, Suliskongen near Fauske, the Steigartindan, between Saltfjellet and eastern Finnmark, Norway spruce trees have originally been planted and are mostly privately owned. The older plantations are now producing lumber,80 years after planted, Lofoten is a chain of peaks that jut out of the ocean. From the mainland side it looks very barren, but behind the violet-black peaks there are also flatlands with good grazing for sheep, the Vesterålen islands consist of smaller and bigger islands with a huge variation in landscape. There are also glaciers, like Frostisen and Blåisen, big islands like Senja, Kvaløya and Ringvassøya have green, forested interiors and a barren, mountainous coastline, with smaller islands offshore. The Lyngen Alps are the highest mountains of the area, rising to 1,833 metres, the 269 metres Mollisfossen waterfall in Nordreisa is the highest waterfall in the north, while Målselvfossen is Norways national waterfall. Finnmark county has fjords and glaciers in the far southwest, the inland is covered by Finnmarksvidda, a relatively barren plateau about 300 to 400 metres high, with many lakes and rivers like Alta-Kautokeino and Tana/Deatnu. Even at this latitude, pine forests grow naturally in lowland areas inland, east of Honningsvåg, there are no islands protecting the barren coasts that rise directly up from the sea. The landscape towards the Russian border is comparatively flat, Finnmark is situated north of northernmost Finland, and to the east Norway has a 196 kilometres border with Russia. The oldest known historical culture in the region is called Komsa, the first people possibly arrived around 12–13,000 years ago, but it is uncertain whether they came from southern Norway or from the Kola Peninsula. Today the rock carvings at Hjemmeluft in Alta or at Leknes in Nordland are among the remainders of the Stone Age cultures, showing reindeer swimming across the fjords. A significant find area is between the river Tana and the fjord of Varanger, where the reindeer probably ran over the isthmus on the way between the winter and summer grazing, metals were introduced around 500 BC. The Sami culture can be traced back at least 2,000 years, there is also some archeological evidence of Bronze Age agricultural settlements about 2,500 years old, as in Steigen and Sømna
5.
Nordkapp
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Nordkapp is a municipality in Finnmark county, Norway. The administrative centre of the municipality is the town of Honningsvåg, other settlements in Nordkapp include the villages of Gjesvær, Kåfjord, Kamøyvær, Kjelvik, Nordvågen, Repvåg, Skarsvåg, and Valan. Some 200,000 tourists visit Nordkapp annually during the two to three months of summer, the main tourist attractions are the North Cape and the nearby Knivskjellodden. The North Cape first became famous when the English explorer Richard Chancellor rounded it in 1553 while attempting to find a sea route through the Northeast Passage, helnes Lighthouse is located at the entrance to the Porsangerfjorden. On 1 July 1861, the district of the municipality of Kistrand was separated to form the new municipality of Kjelvik. Initially, the municipality encompassed the area around the end of the Porsangerfjorden, including part of the island of Magerøya. The name of the municipality was changed from Kjelvik to Nordkapp in 1950, on 1 January 1984, the western part of the island of Magerøya as well as the small surrounding islands of Gjesværstappan were transferred from Måsøy Municipality to Nordkapp Municipality. Nordkapp is a Norwegianized form of the English name North Cape by which the area was historically known dating back to at least 1553, the Old Norse name of the cape was Knyskanes. The municipality was originally named Kjelvik, after the fishing village for the parish. But that village was destroyed by the Germans in 1944. As a consequence of this the municipality changed the name to Nordkapp in 1950, the coat-of-arms is modern, having been granted on 19 October 1973. It shows a silhouette of the North Cape, a large cliff. The Church of Norway has one parish within the municipality of Nordkapp and it is part of the Hammerfest deanery in the Diocese of Nord-Hålogaland. The municipality is governed by a council of elected representatives. The municipal council of Nordkapp is made up of 19 representatives that are elected to four years. There are many fjords in the municipality including Duksfjorden, Kåfjorden, Kamøyfjorden. The main island is Magerøya and there are a few islands located around Magerøya including Gjesvær, Gjesværstappan, Lille Kamøya, the municipalitys most famous place, after which it is named, is Nordkapp. If Europes northernmost point is allowed to be on an island and it would be Cape Fligely on Rudolf Island, Franz Josef Land in Russia, which is located much further north at 81° 48′ 24″ N
6.
Europe
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Europe is a continent that comprises the westernmost part of Eurasia. Europe is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, yet the non-oceanic borders of Europe—a concept dating back to classical antiquity—are arbitrary. Europe covers about 10,180,000 square kilometres, or 2% of the Earths surface, politically, Europe is divided into about fifty sovereign states of which the Russian Federation is the largest and most populous, spanning 39% of the continent and comprising 15% of its population. Europe had a population of about 740 million as of 2015. Further from the sea, seasonal differences are more noticeable than close to the coast, Europe, in particular ancient Greece, was the birthplace of Western civilization. The fall of the Western Roman Empire, during the period, marked the end of ancient history. Renaissance humanism, exploration, art, and science led to the modern era, from the Age of Discovery onwards, Europe played a predominant role in global affairs. Between the 16th and 20th centuries, European powers controlled at times the Americas, most of Africa, Oceania. The Industrial Revolution, which began in Great Britain at the end of the 18th century, gave rise to economic, cultural, and social change in Western Europe. During the Cold War, Europe was divided along the Iron Curtain between NATO in the west and the Warsaw Pact in the east, until the revolutions of 1989 and fall of the Berlin Wall. In 1955, the Council of Europe was formed following a speech by Sir Winston Churchill and it includes all states except for Belarus, Kazakhstan and Vatican City. Further European integration by some states led to the formation of the European Union, the EU originated in Western Europe but has been expanding eastward since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991. The European Anthem is Ode to Joy and states celebrate peace, in classical Greek mythology, Europa is the name of either a Phoenician princess or of a queen of Crete. The name contains the elements εὐρύς, wide, broad and ὤψ eye, broad has been an epithet of Earth herself in the reconstructed Proto-Indo-European religion and the poetry devoted to it. For the second part also the divine attributes of grey-eyed Athena or ox-eyed Hera. The same naming motive according to cartographic convention appears in Greek Ανατολή, Martin Litchfield West stated that phonologically, the match between Europas name and any form of the Semitic word is very poor. Next to these there is also a Proto-Indo-European root *h1regʷos, meaning darkness. Most major world languages use words derived from Eurṓpē or Europa to refer to the continent, in some Turkic languages the originally Persian name Frangistan is used casually in referring to much of Europe, besides official names such as Avrupa or Evropa
7.
Franz Josef Land
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It consists of 191 islands, which cover an area of 16,134 square kilometers, stretching 375 kilometers from east to west and 234 kilometers from north to south. The islands are categorized in three groups, a western, central and eastern, separated by the British Channel and the Austrian Strait, the central group is further divided into a northern and southern section by the Markham Strait. The largest island is George Land, which measures 2,741 square kilometers, followed by Wilczek Land, Graham Bell Island, eighty-five percent of the archipelago is glaciated, with large unglaciated areas being located on the largest islands and many of the smallest islands. The islands have a coastline of 4,425 kilometers. Compared to other Arctic archipelagos, Franz Joseph Land has a high rate of 3.6 square kilometers per coastline kilometer. Cape Fligely on Rudolf Island is the northernmost point of the Eastern Hemisphere, the highest elevations are found in the eastern group, with the highest point located on Wilczek Land,670 meters above mean sea level. The archipelago was first spotted by the Norwegian sealers Nils Fredrik Rønnbeck and Johan Petter Aidijärvi in 1865, the first reported finding was in the 1873 Austro-Hungarian North Pole Expedition led by Julius von Payer and Karl Weyprecht, who named the area after Emperor Franz Joseph I. The islands, then under the name Fridtjof Nansen Land, were annexed by the Soviet Union in 1926, the Kingdom of Norway rejected the claim and several private expeditions were sent to the islands. With the Cold War, the islands became off limits for foreigners, the islands have been a nature sanctuary since 1994 and became part of the Russian Arctic National Park in 2012. There are two candidates for the discovery of Franz Josef Land, the first was the Norwegian sealing vessel Spidsbergen, with captain Nils Fredrik Rønnbeck and harpooner Johan Petter Aidijärvi. They sailed northeast from Svalbard in 1865 searching for suitable sealing sites, the account is believed to be factual, but an announcement of the discovery was never made, and their sighting therefore remained unknown to subsequent explorers. It was at the common to keep newly discovered areas secret, as their discovery was aimed at exploiting them for sealing and whaling. The Austro-Hungarian North Pole Expedition of 1872–74 was the first to announce the discovery of the islands, starting in July 1872, the vessel drifted from Novaya Zemlya to a new landmass, which they named in honor of Franz Joseph I, Emperor of Austria. The expedition contributed significantly to the mapping and exploration of the islands, the next expedition to spot the archipelago was the Dutch Expedition for the Exploration of the Barents Sea, on board the schooner Willem Barents. Constrained by the ice, they never reached land, benjamin Leigh Smiths expedition in 1880, aboard the barque Eira, followed a route from Spitsbergen to Franz Josef Land, landing on Bell Island in August. Leigh Smith explored the vicinity and set up a base at Eira Harbour and he returned the following year in the same vessel, landing at Grey Bay on George Land. The explorers were stopped by ice at Cape Flora, and Eira sank on 21 August and they built a cottage and stayed the winter, to be rescued by the British vessels Kara and Hope the following summer. These early expeditions concentrated their explorations on the southern and central parts of the archipelago, nansens Fram expedition was an 1893–1896 attempt by the Norwegian explorer Fridtjof Nansen to reach the geographical North Pole by harnessing the natural east–west current of the Arctic Ocean
8.
Svalbard
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Svalbard is a Norwegian archipelago in the Arctic Ocean. Situated north of mainland Europe, it is midway between continental Norway and the North Pole. The islands of the range from 74° to 81° north latitude. The largest island is Spitsbergen, followed by Nordaustlandet and Edgeøya, administratively, the archipelago is not part of any Norwegian county, but forms an unincorporated area administered by a governor appointed by the Norwegian government. Since 2002, Svalbards main settlement, Longyearbyen, has had a local government. Other settlements include the Russian mining community of Barentsburg, the station of Ny-Ålesund. Svalbard is the northernmost settlement in the world with a permanent civilian population, other settlements are farther north, but are populated only by rotating groups of researchers. The islands were first taken into use as a base in the 17th and 18th centuries. Coal mining started at the beginning of the 20th century, the Svalbard Treaty of 1920 recognizes Norwegian sovereignty, and the 1925 Svalbard Act made Svalbard a full part of the Kingdom of Norway. They also established Svalbard as an economic zone and a demilitarized zone. The Norwegian Store Norske and the Russian Arktikugol remain the mining companies in place. Research and tourism have become important supplementary industries, with the University Centre in Svalbard, no roads connect the settlements, instead snowmobiles, aircraft and boats serve inter-community transport. Svalbard Airport, Longyear serves as the main gateway, the archipelago features an Arctic climate, although with significantly higher temperatures than other areas at the same latitude. The flora take advantage of the period of midnight sun to compensate for the polar night. Svalbard is a ground for many seabirds, and also features polar bears, reindeer, the Arctic fox. Seven national parks and twenty-three nature reserves cover two-thirds of the archipelago, protecting the largely untouched, yet fragile, approximately 60% of the archipelago is covered with glaciers, and the islands feature many mountains and fjords. Svalbard and Jan Mayen are collectively assigned the ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 country code SJ, both areas are administered by Norway, though they are separated by a distance of over 500 nautical miles and have very different administrative structures. The Svalbard Treaty of 1920 defines Svalbard as all islands, islets and skerries from 74° to 81° north latitude, the land area is 61,022 km2, and dominated by the island of Spitsbergen, which constitutes more than half the archipelago, followed by Nordaustlandet and Edgeøya
9.
Norwegian Sea
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The Norwegian Sea is a marginal sea in the North Atlantic Ocean, northwest of Norway. It is located between the North Sea and the Greenland Sea and adjoins the North Atlantic Ocean to the west, in the southwest, it is separated from the Atlantic Ocean by a submarine ridge running between Iceland and the Faroe Islands. To the North, the Jan Mayen Ridge separates it from the Greenland Sea, unlike many other seas, most of the bottom of the Norwegian Sea is not part of a continental shelf and therefore lies at a great depth of about two kilometres on average. Rich deposits of oil and natural gas are found under the sea bottom and are being explored commercially, the coastal zones are rich in fish that visit the Norwegian Sea from the North Atlantic or from the Barents Sea for spawning. The warm North Atlantic Current ensures relatively stable and high temperatures, so that unlike the Arctic seas. The International Hydrographic Organization defines the limits of the Norwegian Sea as follows, a line joining the southernmost point of West Spitzbergen to North Cape of Bear Island, through this island to Cape Bull and thence on to North Cape in Norway. The West coast of Norway between North Cape and Cape Stadt, from a point on the West coast of Norway in Latitude 61°00 North along this parallel to Longitude 0°53 West thence a line to the NE extreme of Fuglö and on to the East extreme of Gerpir in Iceland. The Southeastern limit of Greenland Sea, the Norwegian Sea was formed about 250 million years ago, when the Eurasian plate of Norway and the North American Plate, including Greenland, started to move apart. The existing narrow shelf sea between Norway and Greenland began to widen and deepen, the present continental slope in the Norwegian Sea marks the border between Norway and Greenland as it stood approximately 250 million years ago. In the north it extends east from Svalbard and on the southwest between Britain and the Faroes and this continental slope contains rich fishing grounds and numerous coral reefs. Settling of the shelf after the separation of the continents has resulted in landslides, the coasts of the Norwegian Sea were shaped during the last Ice Age. Large glaciers several kilometres high pushed into the land, forming fjords, removing the crust into the sea and this is particularly clear off the Norwegian coast along Helgeland and north to the Lofoten Islands. The Norwegian continental shelf is between 40 and 200 kilometres wide, and has a different shape from the shelves in the North Sea and it contains numerous trenches and irregular peaks, which usually have an amplitude of less than 100 metres, but can reach up to 400 metres. They are covered with a mixture of gravel, sand, and mud, deeper into the sea, there are two deep basins separated by a low ridge between the Vøring Plateau and Jan Mayen island. The southern basin is larger and deeper, with areas between 3,500 and 4,000 metres deep. The northern basin is shallower at 3, 200–3,300 metres, submarine thresholds and continental slopes mark the borders of these basins with the adjacent seas. To the south lies the European continental shelf and the North Sea, to the west, the Scotland-Greenland Ridge separates the Norwegian Sea from the North Atlantic. This ridge is on average only 500 metres deep, only in a few reaching the depth of 850 metres
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Nordkapp travel guide from Wikivoyage
