Situated between 57 and 71 degrees North, at the same latitudes as Alaska, Norway is Europe's northernmost country. With a 2,650-kilometer (1,656-mile) coastline, bordering the North Sea to the south, with the Atlantic Ocean to the west and the Arctic Sea to the north, Norway is a sparsely populated strip of land between high mountains and the sea. Its population of 4.5 million is 92 percent ethnic Norwegian, with an indigenous Saami (Lapp) minority of approximately 40,000 and 330,000 other residents of immigrant background.

Apart from fish, hydroelectricity, and offshore petroleum, Norway is poor in natural resources. Less than 3 percent of its total area is cultivable. By 1900 Norway was Europe's poorest country. Emigration to the United States was high, second only to that of Ireland. Between 1850 and 1920 some 800,000 people left Norway for opportunities elsewhere. In the early twenty-first century, however, Norway is among the best places to live, according to the United Nations Human...