Barents Sea in the context of "Kara Strait"

Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic country located on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and the archipelago of Svalbard also form part of the Kingdom of Norway. Bouvet Island, located in the Subantarctic, is a dependency, and not a part of the Kingdom; Norway also claims the Antarctic territories of Peter I Island and Queen Maud Land. Norway has a population of 5.6 million. Its capital and largest city is Oslo. The country has a total area of 385,207 square kilometres (148,729 sq mi). The country shares a long eastern border with Sweden, and is bordered by Finland and Russia to the northeast. Norway has an extensive coastline facing the Skagerrak strait, the North Atlantic Ocean, and the Barents Sea. In 2024, Norway was ranked the seventh happiest country in the world.

The unified kingdom of Norway was established in 872 as a merger of petty kingdoms and has existed continuously for 1,152–1,153 years. From 1537 to 1814, Norway was part of Denmark–Norway, and, from 1814 to 1905, it was in a personal union with Sweden. Norway was neutral during the First World War, and in the Second World War until April 1940 when it was invaded and occupied by Nazi Germany until the end of the war.

68°N 20°E / 68°N 20°E / 68; 20

Sápmi is the cultural region traditionally inhabited by the Sámi people. Sápmi includes the northern parts of Fennoscandia, stretching over four countries: Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Russia. Most of Sápmi lies north of the Arctic Circle, bounded by the Barents Sea, Norwegian Sea, and White Sea. In the south, Sápmi extends to the counties of Trøndelag in Norway and Jämtland in Sweden.

The European Green Belt initiative is a grassroots movement for nature conservation and sustainable development along the corridor of the former Iron Curtain. The term refers to an environmental initiative as well as the area it concerns. The initiative is carried out under the patronage of the International Union for Conservation of Nature and formerly Mikhail Gorbachev. It is the aim of the initiative to create the backbone of an ecological network that runs from the Barents to the Black and Adriatic Seas.

The European Green Belt as an area follows the route of the former Iron Curtain and connects national parks, nature parks, biosphere reserves and transboundary protected areas as well as non-protected valuable habitats along or across the (former) borders.

Novaya Zemlya, also spelled Novaja Zemlja, is an archipelago in northern Russia. It is situated in the Arctic Ocean, in the extreme northeast of Europe, with Cape Flissingsky, on the northern island, considered the easternmost point of Europe. To Novaya Zemlya's west lies the Barents Sea and to the east is the Kara Sea.

Novaya Zemlya consists of two main islands, the northern Severny Island and the southern Yuzhny Island, which are separated by the Matochkin Strait. Administratively, it is incorporated as Novaya Zemlya District, one of the twenty-one in Arkhangelsk Oblast, Russia. Municipally, it is incorporated as Novaya Zemlya Urban Okrug.

The White Sea (Russian: Белое море, romanized: Beloye more; Karelian and Finnish: Vienanmeri, lit. 'Dvina Sea'; Nenets: Сэрако ямʼ, romanized: Serako yam) is a southern inlet of the Barents Sea located on the northwest coast of Russia. It is surrounded by Karelia to the west, the Kola Peninsula to the north, and the Kanin Peninsula to the northeast. The whole of the White Sea is under Russian sovereignty and considered to be part of the internal waters of Russia. Administratively, it is divided between the Arkhangelsk and Murmansk oblasts and the Republic of Karelia.

The major port of Arkhangelsk is located on the White Sea. For much of Russia's history this was Russia's main centre of international maritime trade, conducted by the Pomors ("seaside settlers") from Kholmogory. In the modern era it became an important Soviet naval and submarine base. The White Sea–Baltic Canal connects the White Sea with the Baltic Sea.

The Norwegian Sea is a marginal sea, grouped with either the Atlantic Ocean or the Arctic Ocean, northwest of Norway between the North Sea and the Greenland Sea, adjoining the Barents Sea to the northeast. In the southwest, it is separated from the Atlantic Ocean by a submarine ridge running between Iceland and the Faroe Islands. To the north, the Jan Mayen Ridge separates it from the Greenland Sea.

Unlike many other seas, most of the bottom of the Norwegian Sea is not part of a continental shelf and therefore lies at a great depth of about two kilometres on average. Rich deposits of oil and natural gas are found under the sea bottom and are being explored commercially, in the areas with sea depths of up to about one kilometre. The coastal zones are rich in fish that visit the Norwegian Sea from the North Atlantic or Barents Sea (cod) for spawning. The warm North Atlantic Current ensures relatively stable and high water temperatures, so that unlike the Arctic seas, the Norwegian Sea is ice-free throughout the year. Recent research has concluded that the large volume of water in the Norwegian Sea with its large heat absorption capacity is more important as a source of Norway's mild winters than the Gulf Stream and its extensions.

Finnmark (Norwegian: [ˈfɪ̀nːmɑrk] ; Northern Sami: Finnmárku [ˈfinːˌmaːrːhkuː]; Kven: Finmarkku; Finnish: Finnmarkin lääni; Russian: Финнмарк) is a county in northern Norway. By land, it borders Troms county to the west, Finland's Lapland region to the south, and Russia's Murmansk Oblast to the east, and by water, the Norwegian Sea (Atlantic Ocean) to the northwest, and the Barents Sea (Arctic Ocean) to the north and northeast.

The county was formerly known as Finmarkens amt or Vardøhus amt. Since 2002, it has had two official names: Finnmark (Norwegian) and Finnmárku (Northern Sami). It is part of the Sápmi region, which spans four countries, as well as the Barents Region, and is Norway's second-largest and least populous county.

Murmansk Oblast is a federal subject (an oblast) of Russia, located in the northwestern part of the country, with a total land area of 144,900 square kilometres (55,900 sq mi). Its only internal border is the Republic of Karelia to the south, and it is bordered internationally by Finland to the west and Norway to the northwest and the Barents Sea lies to the north and White Sea lies to the south and east. Its administrative center is the city of Murmansk. As of the 2010 Census, its population was 795,409; however, at the 2021 Census, the population had declined to 667,744.

The Atlantic cod (pl.: cod; Gadus morhua) is a fish of the family Gadidae, widely consumed by humans. It is also commercially known as cod or codling.

In the western Atlantic Ocean, cod has a distribution north of Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, and around both coasts of Greenland and the Labrador Sea; in the eastern Atlantic, it is found from the Bay of Biscay north to the Arctic Ocean, including the Baltic Sea, the North Sea, Sea of the Hebrides, areas around Iceland and the Barents Sea.