1. The Nordic Nations

2. Brief Description
Norden coming from an ancient word meaning “Northlands.”
Made up of Norway, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, and Iceland.

3. Summary Iceland Urban/Rural- 80.5%/9.5% Population- 331,918
Government- Constitutional Monarchy
Ethnicity- Norse-Celt decedents 94%, foreign origin 6%
Money- Krone
Sweden
Urban/Rural- 94.1%/5.9%
Population- 9,801,616
Government- Constitutional Republic
Ethnicity- Mostly Swedes and Finns w/other recent immigrants
Money- Krona
Norway, Video
Urban/Rural- 86%/14%
Population- 5,207,689
Ethnicity- Nowegian 94%, foreign origin 6%

4. Summary Finland Denmark Population- 5,476,922 Population- 5,581,503
Ethnicity- Finn 93%, Swede 7%
Ethnicity- Scandinavian with a variety of other varied ethnicities
Urban/Rural- 84%/16%
Urban/Rural- 88%/12%
Government- Republic
Government- Constitutional Monarchy
Money- Euro
Money- Krone

5. Types of Government- Definitions
Constitutional Monarchy- a system of government in which a monarch is guided by a constitution whereby his/her rights, duties, and responsibilities are spelled out in written law or by custom.
Constitutional Republic- A constitutional republic is a type of government in which the officials are elected by the people. The republic must govern according to the laws of the constitution, and its actions are subject to judicial review. 
Republic- a representative democracy in which the people's elected deputies (representatives), not the people themselves, vote on legislation.

6. A Northern Location- A Varied Landscape
A collection of peninsulas and islands separated by seas, gulfs, and oceans.
The two peninsulas are:
Scandinavian Peninsula- Norway and Sweden
Jutland Peninsula- Denmark and the northern part of Germany.
Denmark is one of the most flat nations of the Nordic nations
Norway is the most mountainous

7. A Northern Location- The Effect of Glaciers
Carved out thousands of lakes across the peninsulas
Removed topsoil and other materials and left them in Denmark and other parts of Western Europe.
Left the soil rocky and difficult to farm.
Carved out deep valleys along the coasts.
When the glaciers melted, water filled the valleys, creating flooded glacial valleys known as fjords.
Can be deep with steep walls.

8. Fjord

9. A Northern Location- Iceland, Fireland
Known as “a land of fire and ice.”
Volcanoes and glaciers exist side by side
Produces much of its energy from geothermal energy, energy produced from the heat of the earth’s interior.

10. Geothermal Energy Video

11. A Northern Location- Long Winters, Short Summers
At midwinter the sun may shine only two or three hours a day.
In midsummer, it shines for more than twenty hours
Winter is when the greenish white and red lights of the aurora borealis, or northern lights, shine most brightly in the Nordic nations.
The lights are formed because the atomic particles from the sun break through the northern atmosphere because it is attracted by the magnetic fields of the North Pole.
The start of summer is a public holiday.
Because the sun doesn’t really set for a couple of weeks, evening is called “white nights.”

12. Northern Lights

13. A Northern Location- The Ocean and the Climate
Half of Iceland, all of Denmark, the west coast of Norway, and southern Sweden have mild marine west coast climates.
Warm currents of the North Atlantic Drift moderates the weather and keep the coast free of ice.
The coldest area lie just east of the mountain chain that runs northeast to southwest through Norway, the Scandinavian Mountains. The range blocks the warm air from reaching the rest of the Scandinavian Peninsula. Making the remainder of climate a cold, dry subarctic climate.

14. Shared Cultural Bonds- Similar Historical Roots
800 A.D. – 1050 A.D.
Vikings- warriors, colonizers, traders, and explorers.
1397 A.D.
Queen of Denmark joined the five lands under one ruler
1523 A.D.
Sweden (which included Finland) left the union.
Early 1800s
Sweden gives Finland to Russia

15. Shared Cultural Bonds- Similar Historical Roots
Religion
Lutheran Church
Language
Finland is bilingual in Finnish and Swedish, also a working a knowledge of English
Nordic schools require students to learn English

16. Shared Cultural Bonds- Governments and Economies
All five Nordic countries are
Democracies
Mixed Economies or systems of combining different degrees of government control. They practice a mixture of free enterprise and socialism.

17. Shared Cultural Bonds- Governments and Economies
Usually the Nordic nations are politically neutral in foreign affairs. What this means is they don’t take sides in international disputes.
Norway refuses to open its harbors for military use and forbids storage of nuclear weapons.
Denmark and Sweden actively promote peaceful solutions to international crises.

18. Sound Economies Stable economies Wealth comes from variety of sources
Denmark and southern Sweden have flat land and a mild climate good for growing crops.
Denmark uses 60% of its land for farming.
Fishing
Norwegians fish heavily and compare it to farmland calling their offshore waters “the Blue Meadow.”
Oil and Gas Production
Ores
Forests