Scandinavia

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This article is about Scandinavia as a cultural-linguistic region. For the broader
group of northern European countries including Finland and Iceland, see Nordic
countries. For the peninsula, see Scandinavian Peninsula. For other uses, see
Scandinavia (disambiguation).
Scandinavia
Satellite photo of the Scandinavian Peninsula, March 2002
Satellite photo of the Scandinavian Peninsula, March 2002
Languages
Danish
Norwegian
Swedish
Finnish
Icelandic
Faroese[1][2]
Regional languages
German
Kven
Me�nkieli
Romani
Sami
Yiddish[1][2]
Demonym(s) Scandinavian
Composition Denmark
Norway
Sweden[3]
Sometimes also:
Finland
Iceland
Faroe Islands
�land Islands[a]
Nordic territories that are not part of Scandinavia:

Jan Mayen
Svalbard
Greenland
Area
� Total
928,057 km2 (358,325 sq mi)
Population
� 2017 estimate
~21 million[citation needed]
� Density
22.7/km2 (58.8/sq mi)
Time zone UTC+1 (Central European Time)
� Summer (DST)
UTC+2 (Central European Summer Time)
Internet TLD
.dk, .no, .se
.ax, .fi, .fo, .gl, .is, .sj
Snow cover across Scandinavia, as imaged by MODIS on board NASA's Terra satellite
in 2002
This article is part of a series on
Scandinavia
Contemporary countries
Denmark
Norway
Sweden
History
Prehistory
Stone Age
Bronze Age
Iron Age
Norsemen
Old Norse
Migration Period
Viking Age
Viking art
Mythology
Christianization
History of Denmark
History of Norway
History of Sweden
Sweden�Finland
Kalmar Union
Great Northern War
Denmark�Norway
Sweden�Norway
Monetary Union
Defence Union
Nordic Council
Geography
Mountains
Peninsula
Baltic Sea
North Sea
Other topics
Languages
Scandinavism
Nordic countries
Monetary Union
Defence Union
Scandinavian Airlines
vte
Scandinavia[b] (/?sk�nd?'ne?vi?/ SKAN-dih-NAY-vee-?) is a region in Northern
Europe, with strong historical, cultural, and linguistic ties. The term Scandinavia
in local usage covers the three kingdoms of Denmark, Norway, and Sweden. The
majority national languages of these three, belong to the Scandinavian dialect
continuum, and are mutually intelligible North Germanic languages.[4] In English
usage, Scandinavia also sometimes refers to the Scandinavian Peninsula, or to the
broader region including Finland and Iceland, which is always known locally as the
Nordic countries.[5][6]

While part of the Nordic countries, the remote Norwegian islands of Svalbard and
Jan Mayen are not in Scandinavia, nor is Greenland, a constituent country within
the Kingdom of Denmark. The Faroe Islands are sometimes included.[a]

Contents
1 Toponymy
2 Terminology and use
2.1 Societal and tourism promotional organizations
3 Use of "Nordic countries" vs. "Scandinavia"
3.1 Pliny the Elder's descriptions
3.2 Germanic reconstruction
3.3 Sami etymology
3.4 Other etymologies
4 Geography
5 Languages in Scandinavia
5.1 North Germanic languages
5.2 Finnish
5.3 Sami languages
6 History
6.1 Scandinavian unions
7 Political
8 See also
9 Notes
10 References
11 External links
Toponymy
The name Scandinavia originally referred to the former Danish, now Swedish, region
of Scania. Scandinavia and Scandinavian entered usage in the late 18th century,
being introduced by the early linguistic and cultural Scandinavist movement.[7] The
majority of the population of Scandinavia are descended from several North Germanic
tribes who originally inhabited the southern part of Scandinavia and spoke a
Germanic language that evolved into Old Norse. Icelanders and the Faroese are to a
significant extent descended from the Norse and are therefore often seen as
Scandinavian. Finland is mainly populated by Finns, with a minority of
approximately 5%[8] of Swedish speakers. A small minority of Sami people live in
the extreme north of Scandinavia. The Danish, Norwegian and Swedish languages form
a dialect continuum and are known as the Scandinavian languages�all of which are
considered mutually intelligible with one another. Faroese and Icelandic, sometimes
referred to as insular Scandinavian languages, are intelligible in continental
Scandinavian languages only to a limited extent. Finnish and Me�nkieli are closely
related to each other and more distantly to the Sami languages, but are entirely
unrelated to the Scandinavian languages. Apart from these, German, Yiddish and
Romani are recognized minority languages in parts of Scandinavia.

Terminology and use

"Scandinavia" refers to Denmark, Norway and Sweden.[9] Some sources argue for the
inclusion of the Faroe Islands, Finland and Iceland,[a][10][11][12][13] though that
broader region is usually known by the countries concerned as Norden (Finnish:
Pohjoismaat, Icelandic: Nor�url�ndin, Faroese: Nor�urlond), or the Nordic
countries.[6]

Scandinavia originally referred vaguely to Scania, a formerly Danish region that

became Swedish in the 17th century.

Scandinavia according to the local definition

The extended usage in English, which includes Iceland and the Faroe Islands, the
�land Islands and Finland
The use of "Scandinavia" as a convenient general term for Denmark, Norway and
Sweden is fairly recent. According to some historians, it was adopted and
introduced in the eighteenth century, at a time when the ideas about a common
heritage started to appear and develop into early literary and linguistic
Scandinavism.[7] Before this time, the term "Scandinavia" was familiar mainly to
classical scholars through Pliny the Elder's writings and was used vaguely for
Scania and the southern region of the peninsula.[7]

As a political term, Scandinavia was first used by students agitating for pan-
Scandinavianism in the 1830s.[7] The popular usage of the term in Sweden, Denmark
and Norway as a unifying concept became established in the nineteenth century
through poems such as Hans Christian Andersen's "I am a Scandinavian" of 1839.
After a visit to Sweden, Andersen became a supporter of early political
Scandinavism. In a letter describing the poem to a friend, he wrote: "All at once I
understood how related the Swedes, the Danes and the Norwegians are, and with this
feeling I wrote the poem immediately after my return: 'We are one people, we are
called Scandinavians!'".[14]

The clearest example of the use of Scandinavia is Finland, based largely on the
fact that most of modern-day Finland was part of the Swedish kingdom for hundreds
of years, thus to much of the world associating Finland with all of Scandinavia.
However, the creation of a Finnish identity is unique in the region in that it was
formed in relation to two different imperial models, the Swedish[15] and the
Russian,[16][17] as described by the University of Jyv�skyl� based editorial board
of the Finnish journal Yearbook of Political Thought and Conceptual History.[18]
[19]

Societal and tourism promotional organizations

Various promotional agencies of the Nordic countries in the United States (such as
The American-Scandinavian Foundation, established in 1910 by the Danish American
industrialist Niels Poulsen) serve to promote market and tourism interests in the
region. Today, the five Nordic heads of state act as the organization's patrons and
according to the official statement by the organization its mission is "to promote
the Nordic region as a whole while increasing the visibility of Denmark, Finland,
Iceland, Norway and Sweden in New York City and the United States".[20] The
official tourist boards of Scandinavia sometimes cooperate under one umbrella, such
as the Scandinavian Tourist Board.[21] The cooperation was introduced for the Asian
market in 1986, when the Swedish national tourist board joined the Danish national
tourist board to coordinate intergovernmental promotion of the two countries.
Norway's government entered one year later. All five Nordic governments participate
in the joint promotional efforts in the United States through the Scandinavian
Tourist Board of North America.[22]

Use of "Nordic countries" vs. "Scandinavia"

Further information on this terminology: Nordic countries
While the term "Scandinavia" is commonly used for Denmark, Norway and Sweden, the
term "Nordic countries" is used unambiguously for Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland
and Iceland, including their associated territories (Svalbard,[citation needed]
Greenland, the Faroe Islands and the �land Islands).[6] Scandinavia can thus be
considered a subset of the Nordic countries. Furthermore, the term Fennoscandia
refers to Scandinavia, Finland and Karelia, excluding Denmark and overseas
territories, but the usage of this term is restricted to geology when speaking of
the Fennoscandian Shield (Baltic Shield).

In addition to the mainland Scandinavian countries of:

Denmark (constitutional monarchy with a parliamentary system)

Norway (constitutional monarchy with a parliamentary system)
Sweden (constitutional monarchy with a parliamentary system)
The Nordic countries also consist of:

Finland (parliamentary republic)

Iceland (parliamentary republic)
�land Islands (an autonomous province of Finland since 1920)
Faroe Islands (an autonomous country within the Danish Realm, self-governed since
1948)
Greenland (an autonomous country within the Danish Realm, self-governed since
1979)
Svalbard, which is under Norwegian sovereignty, is not considered part of
Scandinavia as a cultural-historical region, but as a part of the Kingdom of Norway
(since 1925) it is part of the Nordic countries (Norden).
Whereas the term "Scandinavia" is relatively straightforward as traditionally
relating to the three kingdoms of Denmark, Norway and Sweden there exists some
ambiguity as regards the ethnic aspect of the concept in the modern era.
Traditionally, the term refers specifically to the majority peoples of Denmark,
Norway and Sweden, their states, their Germanic languages and their culture. In the
modern era, the term will often include minority peoples such as the Sami and
Me�nkieli speakers in a political and to some extent cultural sense as they are
citizens of Scandinavian countries and speak Scandinavian languages either as their
first or second language. However, Scandinavian is still also seen as an ethnic
term for the Germanic majority peoples of Scandinavia and as such the inclusion of
Sami and Finnish speakers can be seen as controversial within these groups.

The original areas inhabited (during the Bronze Age) by the peoples now known as
Scandinavians included what is now Northern Germany (particularly Schleswig-
Holstein), all of Denmark, southern Sweden and the southern coast of Norway while
namesake Scania found itself in the centre.
Scandinavia and Scania (Sk�ne, the southernmost province of Sweden) are thought to
go back to the proto-Germanic compound *Ska�in-awjo, which appears later in Old
English as Scedenig and in Old Norse as Sk�ney.[23] The earliest identified source
for the name Scandinavia is Pliny the Elder's Natural History, dated to the first
century A.D.

Various references to the region can also be found in Pytheas, Pomponius Mela,
Tacitus, Ptolemy, Procopius and Jordanes, usually in the form of Scandza. It is
believed that the name used by Pliny may be of West Germanic origin, originally
denoting Scania.[24] According to some scholars, the Germanic stem can be
reconstructed as *ska�an- and meaning "danger" or "damage" (English: "scathing",
German: Schaden, Dutch: schade).[25] The second segment of the name has been
reconstructed as *awjo, meaning "land on the water" or "island". The name
Scandinavia would then mean "dangerous island", which is considered to refer to the
treacherous sandbanks surrounding Scania.[25] Skan�r in Scania, with its long
Falsterbo reef, has the same stem (skan) combined with -�r, which means
"sandbanks".

In the reconstructed Germanic root *Ska�in-awjo (the edh represented in Latin by t

or d), the first segment is sometimes considered more uncertain than the second
segment. The American Heritage Dictionary[26] derives the second segment from
proto-Indo-European *akwa-, "water", in the sense of "watery land".

The Old Norse goddess name Ska�i, along with Sca(n)dinavia and Sk�ney, may be
related to Gothic skadus, Old English sceadu, Old Saxon scado and Old High German
scato (meaning "shadow"). Scholar John McKinnell comments that this etymology
suggests that the goddess Ska�i may have once been a personification of the
geographical region of Scandinavia or associated with the underworld.[27]

Pliny the Elder's descriptions

Pliny's descriptions of Scatinavia and surrounding areas are not always easy to
decipher. Writing in the capacity of a Roman admiral, he introduces the northern
region by declaring to his Roman readers that there are 23 islands "Romanis armis
cognitae" ("known to Roman arms") in this area. According to Pliny, the
"clarissima" ("most famous") of the region's islands is Scatinavia, of unknown
size. There live the Hilleviones. The belief that Scandinavia was an island became
widespread among classical authors during the first century and dominated
descriptions of Scandinavia in classical texts during the centuries that followed.

Pliny begins his description of the route to Scatinavia by referring to the

mountain of Saevo (mons Saevo ibi), the Codanus Bay (Codanus sinus) and the
Cimbrian promontory.[28] The geographical features have been identified in various
ways. By some scholars, "Saevo" is thought to be the mountainous Norwegian coast at
the entrance to Skagerrak and the Cimbrian peninsula is thought to be Skagen, the
north tip of Jutland, Denmark. As described, Saevo and Scatinavia can also be the
same place.

Pliny mentions Scandinavia one more time: in Book VIII he says that the animal
called achlis (given in the accusative, achlin, which is not Latin) was born on the
island of Scandinavia.[29] The animal grazes, has a big upper lip and some mythical
attributes.

The name "Scandia", later used as a synonym for Scandinavia, also appears in
Pliny's Naturalis Historia (Natural History), but is used for a group of Northern
European islands which he locates north of Britannia. "Scandia" thus does not
appear to be denoting the island Scadinavia in Pliny's text. The idea that
"Scadinavia" may have been one of the "Scandiae" islands was instead introduced by
Ptolemy (c. 90 � c. 168 AD), a mathematician, geographer and astrologer of Roman
Egypt. He used the name "Skandia" for the biggest, most easterly of the three
"Scandiai" islands, which according to him were all located east of Jutland.[25]

Neither Pliny's nor Ptolemy's lists of Scandinavian tribes include the Suiones
mentioned by Tacitus. Some early Swedish scholars of the Swedish Hyperborean
school[30] and of the 19th-century romantic nationalism period proceeded to
synthesize the different versions by inserting references to the Suiones, arguing
that they must have been referred to in the original texts and obscured over time
by spelling mistakes or various alterations.[31][32]

Germanic reconstruction
The Latin names in Pliny's text gave rise to different forms in medieval Germanic
texts. In Jordanes' history of the Goths (AD 551), the form Scandza is the name
used for their original home, separated by sea from the land of Europe (chapter 1,
4).[33] Where Jordanes meant to locate this quasi-legendary island is still a hotly
debated issue, both in scholarly discussions and in the nationalistic discourse of
various European countries.[34][35] The form Scadinavia as the original home of the
Langobards appears in Paulus Diaconus' Historia Langobardorum,[36] but in other
versions of Historia Langobardorum appear the forms Scadan, Scandanan, Scadanan and
Scatenauge.[37] Frankish sources used Sconaowe and Aethelweard, an Anglo-Saxon
historian, used Scani.[38][39] In Beowulf, the forms Scedenige and Scedeland are
used while the Alfredian translation of Orosius and Wulfstan's travel accounts used
the Old English Sconeg.[39]

Sami etymology
The earliest Sami yoik texts written down refer to the world as Skadesi-suolo
(north Sami) and Skadsu�l (east Sami), meaning "Ska�i's island". Svennung considers
the Sami name to have been introduced as a loan word from the North Germanic
languages;[40] "Ska�i" is the giant stepmother of Freyr and Freyja in Norse
mythology. It has been suggested that Ska�i to some extent is modeled on a Sami
woman. The name for Skade's father Thjazi is known in Sami as C�hci, "the
waterman"; and her son with Odin, Saeming, can be interpreted as a descendant of
Saam the Sami population.[41][42] Older joik texts give evidence of the old Sami
belief about living on an island and state that the wolf is known as suolu gievra,
meaning "the strong one on the island". The Sami place name Sulliidcielbma means
"the island's threshold" and Suolocielgi means "the island's back".

In recent substrate studies, Sami linguists have examined the initial cluster sk-
in words used in Sami and concluded that sk- is a phonotactic structure of alien
origin.[43]

Other etymologies
Another possibility is that all or part of the segments of the name came from the
Mesolithic people inhabiting the region.[44] In modernity, Scandinavia is a
peninsula, but between approximately 10,300 and 9,500 years ago the southern part
of Scandinavia was an island separated from the northern peninsula, with water
exiting the Baltic Sea through the area where Stockholm is now located.[45]

Some Basque scholars have presented the idea that the segment sk that appears in
*Ska�inawjo is connected to the name for the Euzko peoples, akin to Basques, that
populated Paleolithic Europe. According to some of these intellects, Scandinavian
people share particular genetic markers with the Basque people.[44]

Geography

Galdh�piggen is the highest point in Scandinavia and is a part of the Scandinavian

Mountains.
See also: Geography of Denmark, Geography of Finland, Geography of Iceland,
Geography of Norway, and Geography of Sweden
The geography of Scandinavia is extremely varied. Notable are the Norwegian fjords,
the Scandinavian Mountains, the flat, low areas in Denmark and the archipelagos of
Sweden and Norway. Sweden has many lakes and moraines, legacies of the ice age,
which ended about ten millennia ago.

The southern and by far most populous regions of Scandinavia have a temperate
climate. Scandinavia extends north of the Arctic Circle, but has relatively mild
weather for its latitude due to the Gulf Stream. Many of the Scandinavian mountains
have an alpine tundra climate.

The climate varies from north to south and from west to east: a marine west coast
climate (Cfb) typical of western Europe dominates in Denmark, southernmost part of
Sweden and along the west coast of Norway reaching north to 65�N, with orographic
lift giving more mm/year precipitation (<5000 mm) in some areas in western Norway.
The central part � from Oslo to Stockholm � has a humid continental climate (Dfb),
which gradually gives way to subarctic climate (Dfc) further north and cool marine
west coast climate (Cfc) along the northwestern coast.[46] A small area along the
northern coast east of the North Cape has tundra climate (Et) as a result of a lack
of summer warmth. The Scandinavian Mountains block the mild and moist air coming
from the southwest, thus northern Sweden and the Finnmarksvidda plateau in Norway
receive little precipitation and have cold winters. Large areas in the Scandinavian
mountains have alpine tundra climate.

The warmest temperature ever recorded in Scandinavia is 38.0 �C in M�lilla

(Sweden).[47] The coldest temperature ever recorded is -52.6 �C in Vuoggatj�lme
(Sweden).[48] The coldest month was February 1985 in Vittangi (Sweden) with a mean
of -27.2 �C.[48]

Southwesterly winds further warmed by foehn wind can give warm temperatures in
narrow Norwegian fjords in winter. Tafjord has recorded 17.9 �C in January and
Sunndal 18.9 �C in February.

Languages in Scandinavia
Main articles: North Germanic languages, Sami languages, Finnic languages, and
Scandoromani
Two language groups have coexisted on the Scandinavian peninsula since
prehistory�the North Germanic languages (Scandinavian languages) and the Sami
languages.[49] Due to later migrations, Finnish, Yiddish and Romani have also been
spoken for over a hundred years. Denmark also has a minority of German-speakers.
More recent migrations has added even more languages. Apart from Sami and the
languages of minority groups speaking a variant of the majority language of a
neighboring state, the following minority languages in Scandinavia are protected
under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages: Yiddish, Romani
Chib, Romanes and Romani.
North Germanic languages
Main article: North Germanic languages

Continental Scandinavian languages:

Danish
Norwegian
Swedish
Insular Scandinavian languages:
Faroese
Icelandic
The North Germanic languages of Scandinavia are traditionally divided into an East
Scandinavian branch (Danish and Swedish) and a West Scandinavian branch (Norwegian,
Icelandic and Faroese),[50][51] but because of changes appearing in the languages
since 1600 the East Scandinavian and West Scandinavian branches are now usually
reconfigured into Insular Scandinavian (�-nordisk/�y-nordisk) featuring Icelandic
and Faroese[52] and Continental Scandinavian (Skandinavisk), comprising Danish,
Norwegian and Swedish.[53]

The modern division is based on the degree of mutual comprehensibility between the
languages in the two branches.[54] The populations of the Scandinavian countries,
with common Scandinavian roots in language, can�at least with some
training�understand each other's standard languages as they appear in print and are
heard on radio and television.

The reason Danish, Swedish and the two official written versions of Norwegian
(Nynorsk and Bokm�l) are traditionally viewed as different languages, rather than
dialects of one common language, is that each is a well-established standard
language in its respective country.

Danish, Swedish and Norwegian have since medieval times been influenced to varying
degrees by Middle Low German and standard German. That influence came from not just
proximity but also that Denmark and later Denmark-Norway ruling over the German
speaking region of Holstein, and in Sweden with its close trade with the Hanseatic
League.

Norwegians are accustomed to variation and may perceive Danish and Swedish only as
slightly more distant dialects. This is because they have two official written
standards, in addition to the habit of strongly holding on to local dialects. The
people of Stockholm, Sweden and Copenhagen, Denmark have the greatest difficulty in
understanding other Scandinavian languages.[55] In the Faroe Islands and Iceland,
learning Danish is mandatory. This causes Faroese people as well as Icelandic
people to become bilingual in two very distinct North Germanic languages, making it
relatively easy for them to understand the other two Mainland Scandinavian
languages.[56][57]

Although Iceland was under the political control of Denmark until a much later date
(1918), very little influence and borrowing from Danish has occurred in the
Icelandic language.[58] Icelandic remained the preferred language among the ruling
classes in Iceland. Danish was not used for official communications, most of the
royal officials were of Icelandic descent and the language of the church and law
courts remained Icelandic.[59]

Finnish

Historically verified distribution of the Sami languages (legend)

The Scandinavian languages are (as a language family) unrelated to Finnish,
Estonian and Sami languages, which as Uralic languages are distantly related to
Hungarian. Owing to the close proximity, there is still a great deal of borrowing
from the Swedish and Norwegian languages in the Finnish and Sami languages.[60] The
long history of linguistic influence of Swedish on Finnish is also due to the fact
that Finnish, the language of the majority in Finland, was treated as a minority
language while Finland was part of Sweden. Finnish-speakers had to learn Swedish in
order to advance to higher positions.[61] Swedish spoken in today's Finland
includes a lot of words that are borrowed from Finnish, whereas the written
language remains closer to that of Sweden.

Finland is officially bilingual, with Finnish and Swedish having mostly the same
status at national level. Finland's majority population are Finns, whose mother
tongue is either Finnish (approximately 95%), Swedish or both. The Swedish-speakers
live mainly on the coastline starting from approximately the city of Porvoo (in the
Gulf of Finland) up to the city of Kokkola (in the Bay of Bothnia). The �land
Islands, an autonomous province of Finland situated in the Baltic Sea between
Finland and Sweden, are entirely Swedish-speaking. Children are taught the other
official language at school: for Swedish-speakers this is Finnish (usually from the
3rd grade), while for Finnish-speakers it is Swedish (usually from the 3rd, 5th or
7th grade).[citation needed]

Finnish speakers constitute a language minority in Sweden and Norway. There are
also languages derived from Finnish, having evolved separately, known as Me�nkieli
in Sweden and Kven in Norway.

Sami languages
The Sami languages are indigenous minority languages in Scandinavia.[62] They
belong to their own branch of the Uralic language family and are unrelated to the
North Germanic languages other than by limited grammatical (particularly lexical)
characteristics resulting from prolonged contact.[60] Sami is divided into several
languages or dialects.[63] Consonant gradation is a feature in both Finnish and
northern Sami dialects, but it is not present in south Sami, which is considered to
have a different language history. According to the Sami Information Centre of the
Sami Parliament in Sweden, southern Sami may have originated in an earlier
migration from the south into the Scandinavian peninsula.[60]

History
For a more in-depth look at the history of the region, see History of Scandinavia.
Part of a series on the
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Scandinavism�a Norwegian, a Dane and a Swede. This image is considered emblematic

of Scandinavism and is widely used in Scandinavian school books
During a period of Christianization and state formation in the 10th�13th centuries,
numerous Germanic petty kingdoms and chiefdoms were unified into three kingdoms:

Denmark, forged from the Lands of Denmark (including Jutland, Zealand and Scania
(Sk�neland) on the Scandinavian Peninsula)[64]
Sweden, forged from the Lands of Sweden on the Scandinavian Peninsula (excluding
the provinces Bohusl�n, H�rjedalen, J�mtland and Idre and S�rna, Halland, Blekinge
and Scania of modern-day Sweden, but including most of modern Finland)
Norway (including Bohusl�n, H�rjedalen, J�mtland and Idre and S�rna on the
Scandinavian Peninsula and its island colonies Iceland, Greenland, Faroe Islands,
Shetland, Orkney, Isle of Man and the Hebrides)
The three Scandinavian kingdoms joined in 1387 in the Kalmar Union under Queen
Margaret I of Denmark. Sweden left the union in 1523 under King Gustav Vasa. In the
aftermath of Sweden's secession from the Kalmar Union, civil war broke out in
Denmark and Norway�the Protestant Reformation followed. When things had settled,
the Norwegian Privy Council was abolished�it assembled for the last time in 1537. A
personal union, entered into by the kingdoms of Denmark and Norway in 1536, lasted
until 1814. Three sovereign successor states have subsequently emerged from this
unequal union: Denmark, Norway and Iceland.

The borders between the three countries got the shape they have had since in the
middle of the seventeenth century: In the 1645 Treaty of Br�msebro, Denmark�Norway
ceded the Norwegian provinces of J�mtland, H�rjedalen and Idre and S�rna, as well
as the Baltic Sea islands of Gotland and �sel (in Estonia) to Sweden. The Treaty of
Roskilde, signed in 1658, forced Denmark�Norway to cede the Danish provinces
Scania, Blekinge, Halland, Bornholm and the Norwegian provinces of B�huslen and
Tr�ndelag to Sweden. The 1660 Treaty of Copenhagen forced Sweden to return Bornholm
and Tr�ndelag to Denmark�Norway, and to give up its recent claims to the island
Funen.[65]

In the east, Finland, was a fully incorporated part of Sweden since medieval times
until the Napoleonic wars, when it was ceded to Russia. Despite many wars over the
years since the formation of the three kingdoms, Scandinavia has been politically
and culturally close.

Scandinavian unions

The Kalmar Union (c.?1400)

Denmark�Norway as a historiographical name refers to the former political union
consisting of the kingdoms of Denmark and Norway, including the Norwegian
dependencies of Iceland, Greenland and the Faroe Islands. The corresponding
adjective and demonym is Dano-Norwegian. During Danish rule, Norway kept its
separate laws, coinage and army as well as some institutions such as a royal
chancellor. Norway's old royal line had died out with the death of Olav IV[66] in
1387, but Norway's remaining a hereditary kingdom became an important factor for
the Oldenburg dynasty of Denmark�Norway in its struggles to win elections as kings
of Denmark.

The Treaty of Kiel (14 January 1814) formally dissolved the Dano-Norwegian union
and ceded the territory of Norway proper to the King of Sweden, but Denmark
retained Norway's overseas possessions. However, widespread Norwegian resistance to
the prospect of a union with Sweden induced the governor of Norway, crown prince
Christian Frederick (later Christian VIII of Denmark), to call a constituent
assembly at Eidsvoll in April 1814. The assembly drew up a liberal constitution and
elected Christian Frederick to the throne of Norway. Following a Swedish invasion
during the summer, the peace conditions of the Convention of Moss (14 August 1814)
specified that king Christian Frederik had to resign, but Norway would keep its
independence and its constitution within a personal union with Sweden. Christian
Frederik formally abdicated on 10 August 1814 and returned to Denmark. The
Norwegian parliament Storting elected king Charles XIII of Sweden as king of Norway
on 4 November.

The Storting dissolved the union between Sweden and Norway in 1905, after which the
Norwegians elected Prince Charles of Denmark as king of Norway: he reigned as
Haakon VII.

Political
Main article: Scandinavism
See also: Politics of Denmark, Politics of Norway, and Politics of Sweden
The influence of Scandinavism as a Scandinavist political movement was in the
middle of the nineteenth century between the First Schleswig War (1848�1850) and
the Second Schleswig War (1864).

The Swedish king also proposed a unification of Denmark, Norway and Sweden into a
single united kingdom. The background for the proposal was the tumultuous events
during the Napoleonic Wars in the beginning of the century. This war resulted in
Finland (formerly the eastern third of Sweden) becoming the Russian Grand Duchy of
Finland in 1809 and Norway (de jure in union with Denmark since 1387, although de
facto treated as a province) becoming independent in 1814, but thereafter swiftly
forced to accept a personal union with Sweden. The dependent territories Iceland,
the Faroe Islands and Greenland, historically part of Norway, remained with Denmark
in accordance with the Treaty of Kiel. Sweden and Norway were thus united under the
Swedish monarch, but Finland's inclusion in the Russian Empire excluded any
possibility for a political union between Finland and any of the other Nordic
countries.

The end of the Scandinavian political movement came when Denmark was denied the
military support promised from Sweden and Norway to annex the (Danish) Duchy of
Schleswig, which together with the (German) Duchy of Holstein had been in personal
union with Denmark. The Second war of Schleswig followed in 1864, a brief but
disastrous war between Denmark and Prussia (supported by Austria). Schleswig-
Holstein was conquered by Prussia and after Prussia's success in the Franco-
Prussian War a Prussian-led German Empire was created and a new power-balance of
the Baltic sea countries was established. Scandinavian Monetary Union, established
in 1873, lasted until World War I.

See also
Baltic region
Baltoscandia
Fennoscandia
Kvenland
Nordic Council
Nordic countries
Nordic Cross Flag
Scandinavian colonialism
Scandinavian family name etymology
Scandinavian Peninsula
Scandza
Vikings
Notes
"Scandinavia". Encyclop�dia Britannica. 2009. Retrieved 28 October 2009.
Scandinavia, historically Scandia, part of northern Europe, generally held to
consist of the two countries of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Norway and Sweden, with
the addition of Denmark. Some authorities argue for the inclusion of Finland on
geologic and economic grounds and of Iceland and the Faroe Islands on the grounds
that their inhabitants speak Scandinavian languages related to those of Norway and
Sweden and also have similar cultures.
Danish, Swedish and archaic (Dano-)Norwegian: Skandinavien, Norwegian, Faroese and
Finnish: Skandinavia, Icelandic: Skandinav�a, Sami: Skadesi-suolu/Skadsu�l
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