Norway is a Nordic country on the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, located in Europe, and bordering Sweden, Finland and Russia. Norway has a very elongated shape; the country's extensive coastline along the North Atlantic Ocean is home to its famous fjords. The Kingdom of Norway also includes the Arctic island territories of Svalbard and Jan Mayen. The Norwegian sovereignty on Svalbard is based on the Svalbard Treaty, but this does not apply to Jan Mayen. Bouvet Island in the South Atlantic Ocean and a claim for Peter I Island in the South Pacific Ocean are also external dependencies, but these are not part of the Kingdom. Norway also claims Queen Maud Land in Antarctica where it has established the Troll permanent research station.
At 323,802 km² (not including Jan Mayen, Svalbard, and other overseas possessions), Norway is larger than both Italy and Great Britain, but somewhat smaller than Germany. It is approximately the same size as the U.S. state of New Mexico. Norway forms the Western part of Scandinavia. The rugged coastline, broken by massive fjords and thousands of islands, stretches over 25,000 km. Norway shares a 2,542 km land border with Sweden, Finland, and Russia to the east. To the west and south, Norway is bordered by the Norwegian Sea, the North Sea, and Skagerak. The Barents Sea represents Norway's northern border. Norway is a very rugged and mountainous country, containing a great variety of natural features caused by prehistoric glaciers and varied topography. The most noticeable of these are the fjords, deep grooves cut into the land that flooded with water. The largest of these is Sognefjorden. Norway also contains many glaciers and waterfalls. The land is mostly made of hard granite and gneiss rock, but slate, sandstone and marble are also common, and the lowest elevations have marine deposits. Due to the Gulf Stream and prevailing westerlies, Norway experiences warmer temperatures and more precipitation than expected at such northern latitudes, especially along the coast. The mainland experiences four distinct seasons, with colder winters and less precipitation inland. The northernmost part has a mostly maritime subarctic climate, while Svalbard has an arctic tundra climate.
There are large seasonal variations in daylight. In areas north of the Arctic Circle, the summer sun may never completely descend beneath the horizon; hence Norway's description as the "Land of the Midnight Sun." During summer, inhabitants south of the Arctic Circle still experience sunlight for many of the day's twenty-four hours.
Norway is divided into nineteen first-level administrative regions known as fylker ("counties"; singular fylke) and 431 second-level kommuner ("municipalities"; singular kommune). The fylke is the intermediate administration between state and municipality. The King is represented in every county by a "Fylkesmann".
The Norwegian language has two official written forms, Bokmål and Nynorsk. They have officially equal status, i.e. they are both used in public administration, in schools, churches, radio and television, but Bokmål is used by the majority. Around 95% of the population speak Norwegian as their native tongue, although many speak dialects that differ significantly from the written language. Nevertheless, all of the Norwegian dialects are inter-intelligible. Several Sami languages are spoken and written throughout the country, especially in the north, by the Sami people. The Germanic Norwegian language and the Finno-Ugric Sami languages are entirely unrelated. However, the Finnish language is distantly related to the Sami language.
