Norway - the country

A view of the capital, Oslo

As a first post, I guess it's appropriate to start with some information on the country, Norway:

Assuming you don't already know, Norway (Norge) is located in Northern Europe, west of Sweden and north of Denmark. It shares a very long land border with Sweden, a northern border with Finland and a very small border with Russia (which has previously led to a lot of dispute between the countries, especially over fishing rights).

As a country, Norway has been hailed as having one of the best qualities of life for its citizens, and has frequently topped lists for things like education, parenting, standard of living and so on. However, it has also topped lists of most expensive countries to live in, which is sometimes a pretty big shock to first time travelers to the country.

Some quick facts about Norway:
-a land area of about 385 thousand square kilometres
-a population density of only 12 people per square kilometres and a total population of about 4.4 million. This makes it one of the most sparsely populated countries in the world.
-the capital (and largest) city is Oslo, with a population a little less than 1 million
-there is two written forms of Norwegian, Bokmål ('book Norwegian') and Nyorsk ('new Norwegian')... not to mention the many dialects
-most people underestimate the size of Norway, since it is over 70% mountainous terrain, it actually takes a very long time to drive through Norway, despite the country being rather small.


I suppose, more to come when I get more time, when I get around to it, I will write up a Norwegian language lesson, starting with the absolute basics - the alphabet.

Please comment on what you would like to see or read in the future, or what in particular you would like to learn, or even if you have specific questions i'll try to help answer them, or perhaps others here can too.