The unified kingdom of Norway was established in 872 as a merger of petty kingdoms and has existed continuously for over a millennium. From 1537 to 1814, Norway was part of Denmark–Norway, and from 1814 to 1905, it was in a personal union with Sweden. Norway was neutral during the First World War, and in the Second World War until April 1940 when it was invaded and occupied by Nazi Germany until the end of the war.
Haakon VIII of the House of Glücksburg is the king of Norway. Jonas Gahr Støre has been prime minister of Norway since 2021. As a unitary state with a constitutional monarchy, Norway divides state power between the parliament, the cabinet, and the judiciary, as determined by the 1814 constitution. 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 the European Union and with 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, and the Nordic Council; a member of the European Economic Area, the WTO, and the OECD; and a part of the Schengen Area. The Norwegian dialects form a continuum of mutual intelligibility with Danish and Swedish dialects.
Norway maintains the Nordic model with universal health care and a comprehensive social security system, with its values rooted in egalitarian ideals. The Norwegian state has large ownership positions in key industrial sectors, having extensive reserves of petroleum, natural gas, minerals, lumber, seafood, and fresh water.
The petroleum industry accounts for around a quarter of the country's gross domestic product (GDP). 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- and eighth-highest PPP-adjusted per-capita GDP in the world on the World Bank's and IMF's list, respectively. It has the world's largest sovereign wealth fund, with a value of US$2.1 trillion.
Etymology
Norway has two official names: Norge in Bokmål and Noreg in Nynorsk. The English name Norway comes from the Old English word Norþweg in the account provided by Ohthere of Hålogaland around 890, meaning "northern way" or "way leading to the north", which is how the Anglo-Saxons referred to the coastline of Atlantic Norway. The Anglo-Saxons of Britain also referred to Norway in 890 as Norðmanna land.
There is some disagreement about whether the native name of Norway originally had the same etymology as the English form. According to the traditional dominant view, the first component was originally 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, and contrasting with suðrvegar "southern way" (from Old Norse suðr) for (Germany), and austrvegr "eastern way" (from austr) for the Baltic.
History
Prehistory
The earliest traces of human occupation in Norway are found along the coast, where the huge ice shelf of the last ice age first melted between 11,000 and 8000 BC. The oldest finds are stone tools dating from 9500 to 6000 BC, discovered in Finnmark (Komsa culture) in the north and Rogaland (Fosna culture) in the southwest. Theories about the two cultures being separate were deemed obsolete in the 1970s.
Between 3000 and 2500 BC, new settlers (Corded Ware culture) arrived in eastern Norway. They were Indo-European farmers who grew grain and kept livestock, and gradually replaced the hunting-fishing population of the west coast.
Metal Ages
Around 1500 BC, bronze was gradually introduced. Burial cairns built close to the sea as far north as Harstad and also inland in the south are characteristic of this period, with rock carving motifs that differ from those of the Stone Age, depicting ships resembling the Hjortspring boat, while large stone burial monuments known as stone ships were also erected.
There is little archaeological evidence dating to the early Iron Age, which were the last 500 years BC. The dead were cremated, and their graves contained little goods. During the first four centuries AD, the people of Norway were in contact with Roman-occupied Gaul; about 70 Roman bronze cauldrons, often used as burial urns, have been found.
Contact with countries farther south brought a knowledge of runes; the oldest known Norwegian runic inscription dates from the third century.
Viking Age
By the time of the first historical records of Scandinavia, about the 8th century, several small political entities existed in Norway. It has been estimated that there were nine petty realms in Western Norway during the early Viking Age. On this basis, archaeologist Bergljot Solberg estimates that there would have been at least 20 in the whole country.
In the Viking period, Norwegian Viking explorers discovered Iceland by accident in the ninth century when heading for the Faroe Islands, and eventually came across Vinland, known today as Newfoundland, in Canada. The Vikings from Norway were most active in the northern and western British Isles and eastern North America isles.
According to tradition, Harald Fairhair unified them into one in 872 after the Battle of Hafrsfjord in Stavanger, thus becoming the first king of a united Norway. Harald's realm was mainly a South Norwegian coastal state. Fairhair ruled with a strong hand and according to the sagas, many Norwegians left the country to live in Iceland, the Faroe Islands, Greenland, and parts of Britain and Ireland.
Haakon I the Good was Norway's first Christian king, in the mid-10th century, though his attempt to introduce the religion was rejected. Norse traditions were replaced slowly by Christian ones in the late 10th and early 11th centuries. This is largely attributed to the missionary kings Olaf I Tryggvasson and Olaf II Haraldsson (St.
Olaf). Olaf Tryggvasson conducted raids in England, including attacking London. Arriving back in Norway in 995, Olaf landed in Moster where he built a church which became the first Christian church in Norway. From Moster, Olaf sailed north to Trondheim where he was proclaimed King of Norway by the Eyrathing in 995. One of the most important sources for the history of the 11th century Vikings is the treaty between the Icelanders and Olaf II Haraldsson, king of Norway circa 1015 to 1028.
Feudalism never really developed in Norway or Sweden, as it did in the rest of Europe. However, the administration of government took on a very conservative feudal character. The Hanseatic League forced royalty to cede to them greater and greater concessions over foreign trade and the economy, because of the loans the Hansa had made to the royals and the large debt the kings were carrying.
The League's monopolistic control over the economy of Norway put pressure on all classes, especially the peasantry, to the degree that no real burgher class existed in Norway.
High Middle Ages
From the 1040s to 1130, the country was at peace. In 1130, the civil war era broke out on the basis of unclear succession laws, which allowed the king's sons to rule jointly. The Archdiocese of Nidaros was created in 1152 and attempted to control the appointment of kings. The church inevitably had to take sides in the conflicts. The wars ended in 1217 with the appointment of Håkon IV Håkonsson, who introduced clear laws of succession.
From 1000 to 1300, the population increased from 150,000 to 400,000, resulting both in more land being cleared and the subdivision of farms. While in the Viking Age farmers owned their own land, by 1300, seventy per cent of the land was owned by the king, the church, or the aristocracy, and about twenty per cent of yields went to these landowners.
The 13th century saw Norway's golden age, marked by peace, increased trade with the British Islands, and rising German influence toward the century's end. Throughout the High Middle Ages, the king established Norway as a sovereign state with a central administration and local representatives.
In 1349, the Black Death spread to Norway and within a year killed a third of the population. Later plagues reduced the population to half the starting point by 1400. Many communities were entirely wiped out, resulting in an abundance of land, allowing farmers to switch to more animal husbandry. The reduction in taxes weakened the king's position, and many aristocrats lost the basis for their surplus.
High tithes to church made it increasingly powerful and the archbishop became a member of the Council of State.
The Hanseatic League took control over Norwegian trade during the 14th century and established a trading centre in Bergen. In 1380, Olaf Haakonsson inherited both the Norwegian (as Olaf IV) and Danish thrones (as Olaf II), creating a union between the two countries. In 1397, under Margaret I, the Kalmar Union was created between the three Scandinavian countries.
She waged war against the Germans, resulting in a trade blockade and higher taxation on Norwegian goods, which led to a rebellion. The Norwegian Council of State was, however, too weak to pull out of the union.
Margaret pursued a centralising policy which inevitably favoured Denmark because of its greater population. Margaret also granted trade privileges to the Hanseatic merchants of Lübeck in Bergen in return for recognition of her rule, and these hurt the Norwegian economy. The Hanseatic merchants formed a state within a state in Bergen for generations. The "Victual Brothers" launched three devastating pirate raids on the port (the last in 1427).
Norway slipped ever more to the background under the Oldenburg dynasty (established 1448). There was one revolt under Knut Alvsson in 1502. Norway took no part in the events which led to Sweden's secession from the Kalmar Union in the 1520s.
Kalmar Union
Upon the death of King Haakon V in 1319, Magnus Eriksson, at just three years old, inherited the throne as King Magnus VII. A simultaneous movement to make Magnus King of Sweden proved successful (he was a grandson of King Magnus Ladulås of Sweden), and both the kings of Sweden and of Denmark were elected to the throne by their respective nobles. Thus Sweden and Norway were united under King Magnus VII.
In 1349, the Black Death killed between 50% and 60% of Norway's population and led to a period of social and economic decline. Although the death rate was comparable with the rest of Europe, economic recovery took much longer because of the small, scattered population. Even before the plague, the population was only about 500,000.
After the plague, many farms lay idle while the population slowly increased. However, the few surviving farms' tenants found their bargaining positions with their landlords greatly strengthened.
King Magnus VII ruled Norway until 1350, when his son, Haakon, was placed on the throne as Haakon VI. In 1363, Haakon married Margaret, daughter of King Valdemar IV of Denmark. Upon the death of Haakon in 1379, his 10-year-old son Olaf IV acceded to the throne. As Olaf had already been elected to the throne of Denmark in 1376, Denmark and Norway entered a personal union.
Olaf's mother and Haakon's widow, Queen Margaret, managed the foreign affairs of Denmark and Norway during Olaf's minority.
Margaret was on the verge of achieving a union of Sweden with Denmark and Norway when Olaf IV suddenly died. Denmark made Margaret temporary ruler on the death of Olaf. On 2 February 1388, Norway followed suit and crowned Margaret. Queen Margaret knew that her power would be more secure if she were able to find a king to rule in her place.
She settled on Eric of Pomerania, grandson of her sister. Thus at an all-Scandinavian meeting held at Kalmar, Erik of Pomerania was crowned king of all three Scandinavian countries, bringing the thrones of Norway, Denmark, and Sweden under the control of Queen Margaret when the country entered into the Kalmar Union.
Early modern period
After Sweden broke out of the Kalmar Union in 1521, Norway tried to follow suit,[citation needed] but the subsequent rebellion was defeated, and Norway remained in a union with Denmark until 1814. This period was by some referred to as the "400-Year Night", since all of the kingdom's intellectual and administrative power was centred in Copenhagen.
With the introduction of Protestantism in 1536, the archbishopric in Trondheim was dissolved; Norway lost its independence and effectually became a colony of Denmark. The Church's income and possessions were instead redirected to the court in Copenhagen. 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 cultural and economic life in the rest of Europe.[citation needed]
Eventually restored as a kingdom (albeit in legislative union with Denmark) in 1661, Norway saw its land area decrease in the 17th century with the loss of the provinces Båhuslen, Jemtland, and Herjedalen to Sweden, as the result of a number of disastrous wars. In the north, its territory was increased by the acquisition of the provinces of Troms and Finnmark, at the expense of Sweden and Russia.
The famine of 1695–1696 killed roughly 10% of Norway's population. The harvest failed in Scandinavia at least nine times between 1740 and 1800, with great loss of life.
Later modern period
After Denmark–Norway was attacked by the United Kingdom at the 1807 Battle of Copenhagen, it entered into an alliance with Napoleon, with the war leading to dire conditions and mass starvation in 1812. As the Danish kingdom was on the losing side in 1814, it was forced by the Treaty of Kiel to cede Norway to Sweden, while the old Norwegian provinces of Iceland, Greenland, and the Faroe Islands remained with the Danish crown.
Norway took this opportunity to declare independence, adopted a constitution based on American and French models, and elected the Crown Prince of Denmark and Norway, Christian Frederick, as king on 17 May 1814 – celebrated as the Syttende mai (Seventeenth of May) holiday.
Norwegian opposition to the decision to link Norway with Sweden caused the Norwegian–Swedish War to break out as Sweden tried to subdue Norway by military means. As Sweden's military was not strong enough to defeat the Norwegian forces outright, and Norway's treasury was not large enough to support a protracted war, and as British and Russian navies blockaded the Norwegian coast, the belligerents were forced to negotiate the Convention of Moss.
Christian Frederik abdicated the Norwegian throne and authorised the Parliament of Norway to make the necessary constitutional amendments to allow for the personal union that Norway was forced to accept. On 4 November 1814, the Parliament (Storting) elected Charles XIII of Sweden as king of Norway, thereby establishing the union with Sweden.
Under this arrangement, Norway kept its liberal constitution and its own independent institutions, though it shared a monarch and foreign policy with Sweden. Following the recession caused by the Napoleonic Wars, economic development of Norway remained slow until 1830.
This period also saw the rise of Norwegian romantic nationalism, as Norwegians sought to define and express a distinct national character. The movement covered all branches of culture, including literature (Henrik Wergeland, Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson, Peter Christen Asbjørnsen, Jørgen Moe), painting (Hans Gude, Adolph Tidemand), 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.
King Charles III John came to the throne of Norway and Sweden in 1818 and reigned to 1844. He protected the constitution and liberties of Norway and Sweden during the age of Metternich.[neutrality is disputed] As such, he was regarded as a liberal monarch.
However, he was ruthless in his use of paid informers, secret police and restrictions on the freedom of the press to put down public movements for reform—especially the Norwegian national independence movement.
The Romantic Era that followed the reign of Charles III John brought some significant social and political reforms. In 1854, women won the right to inherit property. In 1863, the last trace of keeping unmarried women in the status of minors was removed. Furthermore, women were eligible for different occupations, particularly the common school teacher.
By mid-century, Norway's democracy was limited; voting was limited to officials, property owners, leaseholders and burghers of incorporated towns.
Norway remained a conservative society. Life in Norway (especially economic life) was "dominated by the aristocracy of professional men who filled most of the important posts in the central government". There was no strong bourgeois class to demand a breakdown of this aristocratic control. Thus, even while revolution swept over most of the countries of Europe in 1848, Norway was largely unaffected.
Marcus Thrane was a Utopian socialist who in 1848 organised a labour society in Drammen. In just a few months, this society had a membership of 500 and was publishing its own newspaper. Within two years, 300 societies had been organised all over Norway, with a total membership of 20,000 drawn from the lower classes of both urban and rural areas. In the end, the revolt was easily crushed; Thrane was captured and jailed.
In 1898, all men were granted universal suffrage, followed by all women in 1913.
Dissolution of the union and the First World War
Christian Michelsen, Prime Minister of Norway from 1905 to 1907, played a central role in the peaceful separation of Norway from Sweden on 7 June 1905. A national referendum confirmed the people's preference for a monarchy over a republic. However, no Norwegian could legitimately claim the throne, since none of Norway's noble families could claim royal descent.