Svalbard in the context of "Ecotourism"

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.

The most isolated major summits of Europe by topographic isolation are located in the European continent and its tectonic and geographic boundaries. This includes major mountain peaks of fold and fault-block mountains, and also volcanoes, located not only in the European Mainland, but also those located on lands and islands on the limits of Europe, like the North Atlantic Ocean islands of the Azores and Iceland, the Arctic Ocean islands of Jan Mayen, Svalbard archipelago and Novaya Zemlya archipelago, the Mediterranean island of Sicily, the Ural Mountains, and Mount Elbrus. The last mentioned is HP of the transboundary Caucasus Mountains and Greater Caucasus region, but as a geologically separate stratovolcano, it is entirely laying in Europe (and Russia), 20 km (12 mi) north of the main ridge of the Greater Caucasus, considered as the one that is forming the limits of Europe. The definition excludes island clearly lying on the African Plate and outside the geographic limits of Europe, like the Canaries and Madeira. The active volcano of Mount Etna is somehow on, or just outside the boundaries of the Eurasian Plate, resting on the subduction boundary where the African tectonic plate is being pushed under the Eurasian plate, but geographically is part of Europe, and is also included in the Top 10 lists.

The Arctic (/ˈɑːr(k)tɪk/; from Ancient Greek ἄρκτος (árktos) 'bear') is the polar region of Earth that surrounds the North Pole, lying north of the Arctic Circle. The Arctic region, from the IERS Reference Meridian travelling east, consists of parts of northern Norway (Nordland, Troms, Finnmark, Svalbard and Jan Mayen), northernmost Sweden (Västerbotten, Norrbotten and Lappland), northern Finland (North Ostrobothnia, Kainuu and Lappi), Russia (Murmansk, Siberia, Nenets Okrug, Novaya Zemlya), the United States (Alaska), Canada (Yukon, Northwest Territories, Nunavut), Danish Realm (Greenland), and northern Iceland (Grímsey and Kolbeinsey), along with the Arctic Ocean and adjacent seas.

Land within the Arctic region has seasonally varying snow and ice cover, with predominantly treeless permafrost under the tundra. Arctic seas contain seasonal sea ice in many places.

Norway has three dependent territories (Norwegian: biland), all uninhabited and located in the Southern Hemisphere. Bouvet Island (Bouvetøya) is a sub-Antarctic island in the South Atlantic Ocean. Queen Maud Land is the sector of Antarctica between the 20th meridian west and the 45th meridian east. Peter I Island is a volcanic island located 450 kilometres (280 mi) off the coast of Ellsworth Land of continental Antarctica. Despite being unincorporated areas, neither Svalbard nor Jan Mayen is formally considered a dependency. While the Svalbard Treaty regulates some aspects of that Arctic territory, it acknowledges that the islands are part of Norway. Similarly, Jan Mayen is recognized as an integral part of Norway.

Both Peter I Island and Queen Maud Land are south of 60°S and are thus part of the Antarctic Treaty System. While the treaty does not affect these claims, the only states that recognize Norwegian sovereignty also have Antarctic claims. Administration of the dependencies is handled by the Polar Affairs Department of the Ministry of Justice and Public Security in Oslo. Norwegian criminal law, private law and procedural law apply to the dependencies, as do other laws that explicitly state they are valid on the dependencies.

The Barents Sea (/ˈbærənts/ BARR-ənts, also US: /ˈbɑːrənts/ BAR-ənts; Norwegian: Barentshavet, Urban East Norwegian: [ˈbɑ̀ːrəntsˌhɑːvə]; Russian: Баренцево море, romanized: Barentsevo More) is a marginal sea of the Arctic Ocean, located off the northern coasts of Norway and Russia and divided between Norwegian and Russian territorial waters. It was known earlier among Russians as the Northern Sea, Pomorsky Sea or Murman Sea ("Norse Sea"); the current name of the sea is after the historical Dutch navigator Willem Barentsz.

The Barents Sea is a rather shallow shelf sea with an average depth of 230 metres (750 ft), and it is an important site for both fishing and hydrocarbon exploration. It is bordered by the Kola Peninsula to the south, the shelf edge towards the Norwegian Sea to the west, the archipelagos of Svalbard to the northwest, Franz Josef Land to the northeast and Novaya Zemlya to the east. The islands of Novaya Zemlya, an extension of the northern end of the Ural Mountains, separate the Barents Sea from the Kara Sea.

The northern gannet (Morus bassanus) is a seabird, the largest species of the gannet family, Sulidae. It is native to the coasts of the Atlantic Ocean, breeding in Western Europe and Northeastern North America. It is the largest seabird in the northern Atlantic. The sexes are similar in appearance. The adult northern gannet has a mainly white streamlined body with a long neck, and long and slender wings. It is 87–100 cm (34+1⁄2–39+1⁄2 in) long with a 170–180 cm (67–71 in) wingspan. The head and nape have a buff tinge that is more prominent in breeding season, and the wings are edged with dark brown-black feathers. The long, pointed bill is blue-grey, contrasting with black, bare skin around the mouth and eyes. Juveniles are mostly grey-brown, becoming increasingly white in the five years it takes them to reach maturity.

Nesting takes place in colonies on both sides of the North Atlantic, the largest of which are at Bass Rock (75,000 pairs as of 2014), St. Kilda (60,000 pairs as of 2013) and Ailsa Craig (33,000 pairs as of 2014) in Scotland, in Ireland (Sceilg Bheag; little Skellig, 35,000 pairs in 2011), Grassholm in Wales, and Bonaventure Island (60,000 pairs in 2009) off the coast of Quebec. Its breeding range has extended northward and eastward, with colonies being established on Russia's Kola Peninsula in 1995 and Bear Island (the southernmost island of Svalbard), in 2011. Colonies are mostly located on offshore islands with cliffs, from which the birds can more easily launch into the air. The northern gannet undertakes seasonal migrations and catches fish (which are the mainstay of its diet) by making high-speed dives into the sea.

An ice cap climate is a polar climate where no mean monthly temperature exceeds 0 °C (32 °F). The climate generally covers areas at high altitudes and polar regions (60–90° north and south latitude), such as Antarctica and some of the northernmost islands of Canada and Russia. Most of Greenland is under the influence of an ice cap climate, although the coasts are prone to more influence from the sea, providing more tundra climates. Some regions on the islands of Norway's Svalbard Archipelago facilitate an ice cap climate. Areas with ice cap climates are normally covered by a permanent layer of ice and have no vegetation. There is limited animal life in most ice cap climates, which are usually found near the oceanic margins. Although ice cap climates are inhospitable to human life and no civilian communities lie in such climates, there are some research stations scattered in Antarctica and interior Greenland.

This is a list of various northernmost things on Earth.