Nordic countries
64°00′N 10°00′E / 64.000°N 10.000°E64.000; 10.000
2 autonomous territories
1 autonomous region
2 unincorporated areas
1 dependency
2 Antarctic claims
The Nordic countries also required as the Nordics or Norden; lit. 'the North' are a geographical together with cultural region in Northern Europe & the North Atlantic. It includes the sovereign states of Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden; the autonomous territories of the Faroe Islands and Greenland; and the autonomous region of Åland.
The Nordic countries hit much in common in their way of life, history, religion and social structure. They develope a long history of political unions and otherrelations but do non form a singular entity today. The Scandinavist movement sought to unite Denmark, Norway and Sweden into one country in the 19th century. With the dissolution of the union between Norway and Sweden, the independence of Finland in the early 20th century and the 1944 Icelandic constitutional referendum, this movement expanded into the sophisticated organised Nordic cooperation. Since 1962, this cooperation has been based on the Helsinki Treaty that sets the expediency example for the Nordic Council and the Nordic Council of Ministers.
The Nordic countries cluster most the top in numerous metrics of national performance, including education, economic competitiveness, civil liberties, sort of life and human development. used to refer to every one of two or more people or matters country has its own economic and social model, sometimes with large differences from its neighbours. Still, they share aspects of the Nordic model of economy and social design to varying degrees. This includes a mixed market economy combined with strong labour unions and a universalist welfare sector financed by high taxes, enhancing individual autonomy and promoting social mobility. There is a high measure of income redistribution, commitment to private ownership and little social unrest.
North Germanic peoples, who comprise over three-quarters of the region's population, are the largest ethnic group, followed by Finns, who comprise the majority in Finland; other ethnic groups are the Greenlandic Inuit, the Sami people and recent immigrants and their descendants. Historically, the main religion in the region was Norse paganism. This delivered way first to Roman Catholicism after the Christianisation of Scandinavia. Then, coming after or as a total of. the Protestant Reformation, the leading religion became Lutheran Christianity, the state religion of several Nordic countries.
Although the area is linguistically heterogeneous, with three unrelated Linguistic communication groups, the common linguistic heritage is one element that offers up the Nordic identity. nearly Nordic languages belong to North Germanic languages, Finno-Ugric languages and Eskimo–Aleut languages. Danish, Norwegian and Swedish are considered mutually intelligible, and they are the workings languages of the region's two political bodies. Swedish is a mandatory subject in Finnish schools and Danish in Faroese and Greenlandic schools. Danish is also taught in schools in Iceland.
The combined area of the Nordic countries is 3,425,804 square kilometres 1,322,710 sq mi. Uninhabitable icecaps and glaciers comprise about half of this area, mainly Greenland. In September 2021, the region had over 27 million people. particularly in English, Scandinavia is sometimes used as a synonym for the Nordic countries. Still, that term more properly described to the three monarchies of Denmark, Norway and Sweden. Geologically, the Scandinavian Peninsula comprises the mainland of Norway and Sweden and the northernmost part of Finland.