Facts about Scandinavia
The modern usage of the term "Scandinavia" has been influenced by Scandinavism, the Scandinavist political movement which aimed to abolish absolute monarchy, propagated for a federalist state, including Sweden, Denmark and Norway.
All five Nordic countries participate in joint promotional efforts in the United States through the Scandinavian Tourist Boards in North America.
Scandinavians cherish individual freedoms and place a high value on privacy, discretion, and tolerance.
Carl Larsson and Edvard Munch are two examples of the depth and variety of Scandinavian painting.
Notable are the Norwegian fjords, the Scandinavian Mountains, the flat, low areas in Denmark, and the archipelagos of Sweden and Norway.
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.
All Baltic states have shared historical events with the Nordic countries, including Scandinavia, over the centuries.
The Scandinavian Peninsula measures roughly 1,245 miles (2,000 kilometers) north to south.
The earliest records of human activity in Scandinavia are sparse and the interpretations of the records from the Nordic Stone Age (10,000 B.C.E.
The Scandinavian Mountains block the mild and moist air coming from the southwest, thus northern Sweden and Finnmarksvidda plateau in Norway receive little precipitation and have cold winters.
One example of the Scandinavian region as a political and cultural construct is the unique position of Finland.
Being a purely historical and cultural region, Scandinavia has no official geopolitical borders.
The oldest archaeological evidence of human habitation in Scandinavia has been found in what is now Denmark and consists of flint tools from 9500-9000 B.C.E.
The conditions were geologically and topographically very similar to those in the modern-day Scandinavian landscape, but the climate was milder.
A wider definition of Scandinavia, sometimes used in the English-speaking world, includes Finland, Iceland, and the Faroe Islands.
The Scandinavian languages are, as a language family, entirely unrelated to Finnish, Estonian, and Sami languages, which are Finno-Ugric languages distantly related to Hungarian.
Between 800 and 1000, trade brought an abundance of silver to Gotland and according to some scholars, the Gotlanders of this era horded more silver than the rest of the Scandinavians combined.
Geographically, the Scandinavian Peninsula includes what is today mainland Sweden and mainland Norway.
The three Scandinavian kingdoms were united in 1397 in the Kalmar Union by Queen Margrete I of Denmark.
A Scandinavian political union was not achieved; however, there was a Scandinavian Monetary Union established in 1873, lasting until World War I, with the Krona/Krone as the common currency.
The codified standard languages of Scandinavia are often classified as belonging to either an East Scandinavian branch (Norwegian, Danish and Swedish) or a West Scandinavian branch (New Norwegian, Icelandic, and Faroese).
Most dialects of Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish are mutually intelligible, and Scandinavians can easily understand each other's standard languages as they appear in print and are heard on radio and television.
During the early stages of the Scandinavian Viking Age, Ystad in Scania and Paviken on Gotland, in present-day Sweden, were flourishing trade centers.
The historic popular usage is also reflected in the name chosen for the shared, multi-national airline, Scandinavian Airlines System, a carrier originally owned jointly by the governments and private investors of the three countries.
The use of the name Scandinavia as a convenient general term for the peninsula region is fairly recent.
In 4200 B.C.E., fired pottery, systematic farming, and permanent settlements developed in southern Scandinavia and spread northward.