Norway
The wealthy Nordic kingdom of fjords and mountains, a nature-loving, egalitarian, oil-rich people of friluftsliv and the family cabin, of skis and Viking heritage, of brown cheese and the seventeenth of May. The complete guide.
Norway is a long, mountainous Nordic country on the western edge of Scandinavia, in northern Europe, famous for its dramatic fjords, its deep love of nature, and its remarkable wealth, home to about five and a half million people. It is one of the most beautiful and most prosperous countries on earth, a land of glacier-carved fjords, high mountains, and a vast Arctic north, whose people have a passion for the outdoors so strong they have a word for it, friluftsliv. Once a poor land of farmers, fishermen, and seafaring Vikings, Norway grew rich on North Sea oil, which it has managed with rare wisdom through a giant national savings fund, building one of the most equal and comfortable societies in the world. A constitutional monarchy and a proudly independent nation outside the European Union, Norway is known for its fjords, its skiing, its cabins, and its quiet, modest, nature-loving people. This guide walks through the land, the outdoor life, the wealth, the heritage, the food, and the customs in turn.
Overview
Norway is a country in northern Europe, occupying the western and northern part of the Scandinavian Peninsula, with a very long, mountainous shape that stretches far up into the Arctic. It shares a long eastern border with Sweden, and shorter borders with Finland and Russia in the far north, while its western and northern coasts, deeply cut by the famous fjords, face the North Sea, the Norwegian Sea, and the Arctic. It is a large country but thinly peopled, with only about five and a half million people, most of them in the milder south around the capital, Oslo, and the western coastal cities of Bergen, Trondheim, and Stavanger.
Norway is a constitutional monarchy and a parliamentary democracy, with a king, currently Harald V, as a much-loved ceremonial head of state, and a prime minister, currently Jonas Gahr Store, who leads the government. The people belong, in name, to the Lutheran Church of Norway, but the country is now largely secular. Norway is one of the wealthiest countries in the world, its riches built on North Sea oil and gas and carefully saved in a vast national fund. Notably, Norway has twice voted not to join the European Union, choosing to stay independent, though it is closely tied to Europe through trade, and it is a founding member of the NATO alliance. The currency is the Norwegian krone.
A few deep forces shape life in Norway. There is the spectacular land of fjord, mountain, and Arctic coast. There is the profound love of nature and the outdoor life. There is the great oil wealth and the equal, well-run society it built. There is the heritage of the Vikings and the indigenous Sami of the north. And there is the modest, egalitarian character of the people. The sections that follow trace these and walk through the customs.
The land of the fjords
Norway is one of the most dramatically beautiful countries on earth, a land of towering mountains, deep valleys, and, above all, the fjords, the long, narrow arms of the sea that reach far inland between sheer cliffs, carved by ancient glaciers, among the most spectacular landscapes in the world. The coast is immensely long and broken into thousands of islands, and behind it rise high mountains, plateaus, and glaciers, so that most of the country is wild, rugged, and thinly settled, with people gathered in the valleys, along the fjords, and on the coast.
The country runs an enormous distance from south to north, much of it within the Arctic, and this gives Norway its extraordinary play of light and dark. In the far north, the land of the midnight sun, the sun does not set for weeks in high summer and barely rises in the depth of winter, and across the northern sky in the dark months dances the aurora, the northern lights, one of the great wonders of the natural world. The warming Gulf Stream keeps the long coast surprisingly mild for so northerly a land.
The sea and the mountains have shaped Norwegian life since the beginning. For most of its history Norway was a hard country of small farms perched along the fjords and in the valleys, and of fishing villages strung along the coast, where people wrested a living from a steep and stony land and a cold, rich sea. The fjords, the mountains, and the Arctic north remain the heart of Norway's identity and the source of its beauty, drawing visitors from around the world and holding the deep love of its people.
Friluftsliv
The deepest value in Norwegian life is the love of the outdoors, so central to the culture that the Norwegians have a cherished word for it, friluftsliv, meaning roughly open-air life, the deep joy of spending time in nature for its own sake. To Norwegians, being outdoors in the fresh air, in every season and every weather, is not a hobby but a way of life and a key part of who they are, learned from earliest childhood, when even small children are taken hiking, skiing, and camping, and carried on throughout life.
This love of nature is protected by an old and treasured right, the right to roam, the allemannsretten, which gives everyone the freedom to walk, ski, camp, and gather berries across the open countryside, mountains, forests, and shores, even on private land, as long as they respect nature and do no harm. Norwegians take to the outdoors constantly, hiking and cycling in summer, skiing in winter, fishing, sailing, and gathering wild berries and mushrooms, and even the largest cities are ringed by forest, fjord, and mountain within easy reach.
At the heart of this outdoor life is the cabin, the hytte, the simple cottage in the mountains, by a lake, or on the coast that a great many Norwegian families own or rent, where they retreat at weekends, holidays, and above all at Easter to live close to nature. The traditional cabin is deliberately simple, a place to ski, hike, read, play cards, and be together away from the rush of modern life, and cabin life, with its closeness to nature and its slow, cosy rhythm, is one of the deepest pleasures of Norwegian life. The bond with nature runs to the very core of the culture.
A nation on skis
Norwegians have a saying that they are born with skis on their feet, and few sayings capture a nation so well, for skiing is woven into Norwegian life and identity as in no other country, at once an ancient way of getting about the snowbound land, a national pastime, and a source of immense pride. The very word ski comes from Norwegian, and the country is widely regarded as the birthplace of skiing, with a history of travel and sport on skis reaching back thousands of years.
The Norwegian passion is above all for cross-country skiing, the gliding travel over the snow that was once essential to life in the long winters and is now the great national winter pastime, enjoyed by people of all ages who take to the prepared trails that lace the forests and mountains, often by the light of head torches in the dark afternoons. Norwegians learn to ski as small children, and a winter weekend or the Easter holiday in the mountains, skiing by day and gathering in the cabin by night, is a cherished tradition.
Norway's love of skiing has made it the most successful winter-sports nation in history, its skiers and biathletes among the finest in the world and its athletes a constant presence on the podium at the Winter Olympics, a record of which the country is enormously proud. The great ski jump at Holmenkollen above Oslo is a national shrine, and the major ski events draw huge and passionate crowds. From the cross-country trail to the Olympic medal, skiing is at the heart of the Norwegian winter and a deep part of what it means to be Norwegian.
The oil fund and the good society
Norway is one of the richest countries in the world, and the story of how it grew rich, and what it did with the wealth, is central to the modern nation. For most of its history Norway was a poor country on the edge of Europe, until, in the 1970s, vast reserves of oil and gas were discovered beneath the North Sea, transforming the nation almost overnight into a major energy producer and one of the wealthiest societies on earth. Today Norway is among the world's leading exporters of oil and gas.
What sets Norway apart is the wisdom with which it has handled this fortune. Rather than spending the oil money freely, the country has saved the great bulk of it in an enormous national savings fund, often called the oil fund, which has grown into the largest such fund in the world, worth trillions, owning small slices of companies across the globe and held in trust for future generations, so that the wealth will outlast the oil. The fund is run with care and openness, and only a small part of its returns is spent each year.
This wealth, combined with a long tradition of social democracy, has built one of the most equal, comfortable, and well-run societies anywhere. Norway has a generous welfare state, with excellent free healthcare and education, strong support for families, and one of the highest standards of living and lowest levels of poverty and inequality in the world, consistently ranked at or near the top for quality of life. Norwegians value this equal, secure society deeply, along with the modesty and fairness that underpin it, and the careful stewardship of the oil wealth is a source of national pride.
The Viking past
Norway's most famous chapter of history is the age of the Vikings, the seafaring Norse warriors, traders, and explorers who, more than a thousand years ago, set out from the fjords of Norway and the other Nordic lands to raid, trade, and settle across much of Europe and beyond, in an age that has gripped the world's imagination ever since. From Norway's coasts, the Vikings sailed their long ships to the British Isles, across the open Atlantic to Iceland, Greenland, and even the shores of North America, centuries before Columbus.
The Viking age left a deep mark on Norway and its sense of itself. It was the time when Norway first became a single kingdom, and it gave the nation a heritage of bold seafaring, craftsmanship, and the rich mythology of the old Norse gods, Odin, Thor, and the rest, along with the great sagas and tales later written down. The beautifully preserved Viking ships unearthed from burial mounds, displayed in the museums of Oslo, are among the nation's greatest treasures, marvels of the shipbuilder's art.
The old beliefs and folklore live on in Norwegian culture in many ways. The myths of the Norse gods are known and loved, and the country is rich in folk tales of trolls, the giant or gnome-like creatures said to lurk in the mountains and forests, which fill Norwegian children's stories and folk art. The distinctive medieval wooden stave churches, built soon after Norway became Christian, with their dragon heads and steep tiered roofs, blend the new faith with the old Norse craft. The Viking and Norse heritage remains a deep source of Norwegian pride and identity.
The people of the north
In the far north of Norway live the Sami, the indigenous people of the Arctic reaches of Scandinavia, who were there long before the Norwegians and who keep, to this day, their own distinct languages, culture, and traditions, above all the ancient herding of reindeer. The Sami are spread across the north of Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Russia, and the largest number live in Norway, mainly in the far northern region of Finnmark and the wider Arctic north.
For centuries the Sami followed a way of life built around the reindeer, some of them moving with the herds across the vast northern lands through the seasons, and reindeer herding remains a vital part of Sami identity and livelihood, though most Sami now live modern lives. The Sami have their own rich culture: their languages, their colourful traditional dress, their distinctive crafts, and their haunting traditional song, the joik, a way of chanting that calls up a person, an animal, or a place.
The Sami suffered long years when their language and culture were suppressed and they were pressed to become like other Norwegians, a hard history now openly acknowledged. In recent decades there has been a strong revival of Sami pride, culture, and rights: the Sami have their own elected parliament in Norway, official status for their languages in the north, and a growing recognition of their heritage, celebrated each year on the Sami National Day. The Sami, the indigenous people of the north, are a distinct and valued part of the Norwegian nation.
The seventeenth of May
The great national day of Norway is the seventeenth of May, Constitution Day, which marks the signing of the Norwegian constitution in 1814, and it is celebrated with a joy, warmth, and national pride that make it one of the most beloved and distinctive national days in the world. Unlike the military parades of some nations, Norway's national day belongs above all to the children, who march in great processions through every town and city, waving flags, singing, and cheering, watched and greeted by the royal family from the palace balcony in Oslo.
On the seventeenth of May the whole country turns out in celebration, the streets filled with flags, music, brass bands, ice cream, and good cheer, in a happy, family celebration free of any militarism. The day is, above all, the great occasion for wearing the bunad, the traditional folk costume of Norway, of which the Norwegians are immensely proud. The bunad is a beautifully made outfit of embroidered wool, worn with silver jewellery, whose design and colours vary from region to region, so that each valley and district has its own distinctive costume, and many Norwegians own one, treasured and worn for the national day, weddings, and other great occasions.
Constitution Day expresses a deep and gentle Norwegian patriotism, a quiet pride in the country, its independence, hard-won from Denmark and then Sweden, its democracy, and its way of life. The sight of the children's parades, the flags, and the bunad-clad crowds is one of the warmest expressions of Norwegian identity, a celebration of nation and community without grandeur or aggression. The seventeenth of May is the joyful heart of the Norwegian year.
A Lutheran heritage
Norway is historically a Lutheran Christian country, and the Lutheran Church of Norway, long the official state church to which most Norwegians still belong in name, has shaped the nation's history, calendar, and customs for centuries, even though the country today is among the more secular in the world, with low levels of regular churchgoing. For most Norwegians, membership of the church is now more a matter of cultural tradition and the marking of life's milestones than of active faith.
The Lutheran heritage still orders much of Norwegian life. Most Norwegians turn to the church for the great milestones of christening, confirmation, marriage, and the funeral, and the rhythms of the Christian year remain woven into the calendar and the festivals. The link between church and state, very old in Norway, has been loosened in recent times, though the king remains tied to the church, and full freedom of religion is firmly held.
The Christian festivals remain cherished, kept now as much for their warmth and tradition as for their faith. Christmas, Jul, is the great family festival of the dark midwinter, celebrated with feasting, candles, and old customs that bring light and cheer to the darkest time of year. Midsummer, the festival of the bright nights around the longest day, is marked with bonfires by the water. Norway is also growing more religiously varied, as immigration has brought communities of other faiths. The Lutheran heritage endures as a quiet but real part of Norwegian culture, even in a secular age.
Brown cheese, salmon, and the packed lunch
Norwegian food is simple, hearty, and shaped by a hard northern land and a rich cold sea, built on fish, meat, dairy, potatoes, root vegetables, bread, and the wild berries of the forests, with a strong tradition of preserving food, by drying, salting, smoking, and fermenting, to last through the long winter. The flavours are honest and homely, and the cooking close to its sources in the sea and the farm.
As a great seafaring and coastal nation, Norway lives close to the sea, and fish is central to the table: cod, both fresh and dried, the famous Norwegian salmon, now farmed in the fjords and exported around the world, herring in many forms, and shellfish from the cold waters. From the land come lamb and game, including reindeer in the north, hearty meatballs and stews, and the rich dairy of the mountain farms. A much-loved Norwegian speciality is brown cheese, brunost, a sweet, caramel-coloured whey cheese, sliced thin onto bread, that is a national favourite, and the country has a deep love of waffles, often heart-shaped, served with jam and sour cream.
A distinctive everyday custom is the packed lunch, the matpakke, the simple open sandwiches that Norwegians of all ages, from schoolchildren to office workers, carry to eat in the middle of the day, a quiet ritual of thrift, simplicity, and equality. The main meal is eaten early in the evening. Hospitality often centres on coffee, of which Norwegians are great drinkers, served with waffles or cakes. Simple, hearty, and tied to the land and sea, Norwegian food reflects the practical, unfussy character of the people.
A reserved and equal people
Norwegians are often described as reserved, quiet, and modest people, valuing privacy and personal space, not given to loud talk, small talk with strangers, or showing off, so that they can seem cool or distant at first. But this reserve is a matter of manners and a respect for others' space rather than coldness, and beneath it Norwegians are warm, kind, loyal, and good-humoured, and friendships, once made, run deep. They dislike fuss, boasting, and anyone who puts themselves above others.
A deep belief in equality runs through Norwegian life and character, the same egalitarian spirit found across the Nordic lands, which holds that no one is better than anyone else and that fairness, modesty, and humility are among the highest virtues. Norwegians are direct and honest in their dealings, value plainness and sincerity over flattery, and treat everyone, regardless of rank or wealth, with an easy equality and informality. Wealth is not shown off, and the rich are hard to tell from anyone else.
This equality and community spirit shows in cherished customs such as the dugnad, the tradition of neighbours coming together to do shared work for the common good, whether tidying the local area or helping at the school or sports club, a practice that binds communities. In daily manners, Norwegians are punctual, orderly, and fair, value honesty and keeping one's word, and respect privacy. For a visitor, the keys to Norway are to respect personal space and reserve, to be punctual and honest, to avoid loudness and boasting, and to share in the love of the outdoors. Behind the quiet reserve lies a steady, genuine warmth.
Family and home
Family is at the centre of Norwegian life, and family ties are close and warm, with a deep value placed on the home, on time spent together, and on the raising of children in a secure and equal society. Norwegian families are usually small, and it is the norm for both parents to work, supported by some of the most generous family policies in the world, including long parental leave shared between mothers and fathers and excellent childcare, reflecting the deep Norwegian commitment to equality between women and men.
The home holds a special place, kept simple, comfortable, and welcoming, in a style of clean lines and natural materials, and Norwegians have their own version of the cosy warmth the Nordic peoples prize, a sense of comfort, candlelight, and togetherness against the cold and dark outside. Much family life centres on the outdoors and the cabin, and weekends and holidays are often spent together hiking, skiing, or retreating to the family hytte, so that the love of nature is passed down through the generations.
Norwegian society is built around the wellbeing of the family and the child, with a strong sense that children should grow up secure, free, and close to nature. Children are raised with much outdoor play in all weathers, a respect for equality and independence, and an early love of the outdoor life. Sundays and holidays are given to family, rest, and the outdoors. The family, the comfortable home, and the bonds shared in nature and the cabin are at the heart of Norwegian life.
The nation today
Norway today is among the wealthiest, most stable, and most contented nations in the world, a constitutional monarchy of about five and a half million people governed from Oslo, with a king, Harald V, as a beloved ceremonial head of state and a prime minister, Jonas Gahr Store, leading the government. Built on its oil and gas wealth, carefully saved in the world's largest national fund, and on a long tradition of social democracy, Norway enjoys one of the highest standards of living anywhere, a generous welfare state, and great equality, and it consistently ranks at or near the very top of the world for quality of life and human development.
The nation faces real questions for the future. Its great wealth rests heavily on oil and gas, and Norway must navigate a world turning away from fossil fuels, even as it leads in some green technologies and draws nearly all its own power from clean hydroelectricity. Like its neighbours, it weighs the effects of immigration, which has made the country more diverse but also stirred debate, along with the high cost of living and how to sustain its model for the future. Having twice chosen to stay out of the European Union, Norway continues to chart its own course, closely tied to Europe yet proudly independent, and watchful of its long Arctic border with Russia.
Through it all, Norway holds firmly to the identity built over its history. The fjords, mountains, and Arctic coast still shape the life and spirit of the people; the love of nature and the outdoor life still run to the core of the culture; the careful stewardship of the oil wealth still underpins an equal and secure society; the heritage of the Vikings and the living culture of the Sami still anchor its sense of itself; and the modest, egalitarian, nature-loving Norwegian character still marks daily life. Wealthy, beautiful, and quietly proud, Norway carries its traditions of nature, equality, and independence into the future.