NORWAY, FLAG OF

national flag consisting of a red field bearing a large blue cross outlined in white. The flag has a width-to-length ratio of 8 to 11. On February 27, 1814, the crown prince Christian Frederick created the first distinctive Norwegian national flag. An expression of local opposition to the Swedish rule imposed on Norway, it consisted of the red Danish flag with its white cross, long used in Norway, with the addition of the Norwegian arms (a golden crowned lion holding an ax) in the upper hoist canton. In 1821 the Norwegian parliament developed the distinctive design in use today, although it faced a 77-year struggle to obtain Swedish recognition of its legitimacy. Designed by Frederik Meltzer, the new pattern consisted of the white cross on red, used in the Danish flag, with a blue cross superimposed for distinction. The Swedish king refused to allow use of the flag on the high seas until 1838, and even then Norwegian ships were warned that they would not be protected if they did not fly the official Swedish-Norwegian union flag. On June 20, 1844, the new Swedish king, Oscar I, established a new union symbol by combining the Swedish and Norwegian crosses. Each kingdom was to fly its own flag but with that emblem added in the upper canton. While this gave greater recognition to the flag Norwegians preferred, it was still not the clean flag they felt entitled to. The union mark was derisively referred to as a herring salad, and contention between the two countries continued. The Norwegian parliament approved a law removing the union symbol from their flag in 1893, in 1896, and again in 1898. After their third approval the king was obliged by a provision in the constitution to sign the law into effect, which he did on December 10, 1898. The clean flag was officially hoisted on December 15, 1899, and six years later Norway separated peacefully from Sweden. Whitney Smith History The earliest traces of human occupation in Norway are found along the coast, where the huge ice shelf of the last ice age first melted between 11,000 and 8000 BC. The oldest finds are stone tools dating from 9500 to 6000 BC, discovered in Finnmark in the north and Rogaland in the southwest. Theories of a Komsa type of stone-tool culture north of the Arctic Circle and a Fosna type from Trndelag to Oslo Fjord were rendered obsolete in the 1970s. More recent finds along the entire coast revealed to archaeologists that the difference between the two can simply be ascribed to different types of tools and not to different cultures. Coastal fauna provided a means of livelihood for fishermen and hunters, who may have made their way along the southern coast about 10,000 BC when the interior was still covered with ice. It is now thought that these so-called Arctic peoples came from the south and followed the coast northward considerably later. Some may have come along the ice-free coast of the Kola Peninsula, but the evidence of this is still poor. In the southern part of the country are dwelling sites dating from about 5000 BC. Finds from these sites give a clearer idea of the life of the hunting and fishing peoples. The implements vary in shape and mostly are made of different kinds of stone; those of later periods are more skillfully made. Rock carvings have been found, usually near hunting and fishing grounds. They represent game such as deer, reindeer, elk, bears, birds, seals, whales, and fish (especially salmon and halibut), all of which were vital to the way of life of the coastal peoples. The carvings at Alta in Finnmark, the largest in Scandinavia, were made at sea level continuously from 6200 to 2500 BC and mark the progression of the land as it rose from the sea after the last ice age. Earliest peoples Between 3000 and 2500 BC new immigrants settled in eastern Norway. They were farmers who grew grain and kept cows and sheep. The hunting-fishing population of the west coast was also gradually replaced by farmers, though hunting and fishing remained useful secondary means of livelihood. From about 1500 BC bronze was gradually introduced, but the use of stone implements continued; Norway had few riches to barter for bronze goods, and the few finds consist mostly of elaborate weapons and brooches that only chieftains could afford. Huge burial cairns built close to the sea as far north as Harstad and also inland in the south are characteristic of this period. The motifs of the rock carvings differ from those typical of the Stone Age. Representations of the Sun, animals, trees, weapons, ships, and people are all strongly stylized, probably as fertility symbols connected with the religious ideas of the period. Little has been found dating from the early Iron Age (the last 500 years BC). The dead were cremated, and their graves contain few burial goods. During the first four centuries AD the people of Norway were in contact with Roman-occupied Gaul. About 70 Roman bronze cauldrons, often used as burial urns, have been found. Contact with the civilized countries farther south brought a knowledge of runes; the oldest known Norwegian runic inscription dates from the 3rd century. At this time the amount of settled area in the country increased, a development that can be traced by coordinated studies of topography, archaeology, and place-names. The oldest root names, such as nes, vik, and b (cape, bay, and farm), are of great antiquity, dating perhaps from the Bronze Age, whereas the earliest of the groups of compound names with the suffixes vin (meadow) or heim (settlement), as in Bjorgvin (Bergen) or Saeheim (Seim), usually date from the first centuries AD. The economy The Norwegian economy is dependent largely on the fortunes of its important petroleum industry. Thus, it experienced a decline in the late 1980s as oil prices fell but by the late 1990s had rebounded strongly, benefiting from increased production and higher prices. Norway reversed its negative balance of payments, and the growth of its gross national product (GNP)which had slowed during the 1980saccelerated. By the late 1990s Norway's per capita GNP was the highest in Scandinavia and among the highest in the world. In an effort to reduce economic downturns caused by drops in oil prices, the government in 1990 established the Government Petroleum Fund, into which budget surpluses were deposited for investment overseas. Only about one-fifth of Norway's commodity imports are food and consumer goods; the rest consists of raw materials, fuels, and capital goods. The rate of reinvestment has been high in Norway for a number of years. This is reflected in the relatively steady employment in the building and construction industry. Rapid growth, however, has been registered in commercial and service occupations, as is the case in most countries with a high standard of living. By the late 1990s more than two-thirds of actively employed Norwegians worked in services, while about one-sixth worked in industry (including manufacturing, mining, and petroleum-related activities). Although the construction sector employed less than one-tenth of the active workforce, its total exceeded that of agriculture and fishing, which comprised a shrinking proportion. Unemployment generally was below 6 percent. Fewer than 5 percent of the industrial companies in Norway have more than 100 employees. Nonetheless, they account for half of the industrial labour force and for more than half of production. The smaller companies are usually family-owned, whereas most of the larger ones are joint-stock companies. Foreign interests control companies accounting for about 10 percent of total production. Only a few larger concerns are state-owned, and even these are usually run with almost complete independence. Agriculture and fishing are highly organized, and they are subsidized by the state. In remote districts private industry may receive special incentives in the form of loans and grants or tax relief. Taxes are high, with sharply progressive income taxes and a value-added (or consumption) tax of 23 percent on all economic activity. Total tax revenues are equivalent to about half of the GNP, but much of this represents transfers of income; i.e., it is returned to the private sector in the form of price subsidies, social insurance benefits, and the like. All this has added to economic problems of inflation, but increases in productivity have made possible a high rate of growth in real income. The strongly centralized trade unions and employer associations respect one another as well as government guidelines, thus helping to control the rapidly expanding economy. Foreign trade, in the form of commodities exported chiefly to western Europe or shipping services throughout the world, accounts for nearly half of Norway's national income. Resources and industry By the mid-1990s Norway had become the world's second largest oil exporter (behind Saudi Arabia), with daily production of more than three million barrels. The first commercially important discovery of petroleum on Norway's continental shelf was made at the Ekofisk field in the North Sea late in 1969, just as foreign oil companies were about to give up after four years of exploratory drilling. Intensified exploration increased reserves faster than production. Nevertheless, by the mid-1990s about half of export earnings and nearly one-tenth of government revenues came from offshore oil and gas, and these revenues continued to increase as the end of the century approached. It was estimated that the high rate of oil production could be sustained at least into the second decade of the 21st century, while that of natural gas was projected to increase dramatically and be sustained even longer. More than one-fourth of the huge investment made in Norwegian offshore operations by the mid-1990s went toward the development of the Troll field just west of Bergen, one of the largest offshore gas fields ever found. Its development ranked as one of the world's largest energy projects. With a water displacement of one million tons and a height of nearly 1,550 feet, the Troll A production platform was the tallest concrete structure ever moved when it was towed into place in 1995. Gas deliveries from the Troll field made Norway a leading supplier of natural gas to continental Europe. With an area of more than 386,000 square miles (1,000,000 square km), Norway's continental shelf is about three times as large as the country's land area. The rich resources found there are largely responsible for an ongoing boundary dispute between Norway and Russia. Negotiations between the two countries, begun in 1974, involve competing approaches to the line separating their claims in the Barents Sea. The contested area is estimated to be about 60,000 square miles (155,000 square km). Norway insists on a midline partition, while Russia insists on a partition based on a sector principle that would make 32 E the dividing line. About half of Norway's 65,000 largest lakes are situated at elevations of at least 1,650 feet (500 metres), about one-fifth of the country lies 2,950 feet (900 metres) or more above sea level, and predominantly westerly winds create abundant precipitation. As a result, Norway has tremendous hydroelectric potential. It is estimated that almost one-third of that potential is economically exploitable, of which more than three-fifths had been developed by the mid-1990s. Some 850 hydropower stations meet virtually all Norway's electrical consumption needs. Norway's per capita production of electricity is the world's highest, twice that of the United States. About one-third of the country's production of electricity is utilized by the electrometallurgical industry, which is Europe's largest producer of aluminum and magnesium. In addition to being among the world's leading exporters of metals, Norway is a significant producer of iron-based alloys. Europe's largest deposit of ilmenite (titanium ore) is located in southwestern Norway. The country also is the world's principal producer of olivine and an important supplier of nepheline syenite and dimension stone (particularly larvikite). Pyrites and small amounts of copper and zinc also are mined, and coal is mined on Svalbard. In all, mining and manufacturing (excluding petroleum activities) account for more than one-third of Norway's export earnings. Metals and engineering are the two main subgroups, each accounting for about one-fifth of nonpetroleum exports. Engineering industry exports doubled in the mid-1990s, the largest increase in 15 years. The level of petroleum-related investment is crucial for the engineering industry, which accounted for about one-third of the manufacturing workforce in the late 1990s. With the decline of traditional shipbuilding beginning in 1980, the importance of the production of equipment for the petroleum industry increased. Supply ships and semisubmersible drilling platforms are exported worldwide, and the Norwegian-designed Condeep production platforms (such as Troll A) are well-suited to the rough seas off Norway's shores. The land Norway occupies part of northern Europe's Fennoscandian Shield. The extremely hard bedrock, which consists mostly of granite and other heat- and pressure-formed materials, ranges from one to two billion years in age. Relief Glaciation and other forces wore down the surface and created thick sandstone, conglomerate, and limestone deposits known as sparagmite; numerous extensive areas called peneplains, whose relief has been largely eroded away, also were formed. Remains of the latter include the Hardanger Plateau3,000 feet (900 metres) above sea levelEurope's largest mountain plateau, covering about 4,600 square miles (11,900 square km) in southern Norway; and the Finnmark Plateau (1,000 feet [300 metres] above sea level), occupying most of the northernmost and largest county of Norway. From the Cambrian through the Silurian geologic periods (i.e., from about 540 to 408 million years ago), most of the area was below sea level and acquired a layer of limestone, shale, slate, and conglomerate from 330 to 525 feet (100 to 160 metres) thick. Folding processes in the Earth then gave rise to a mountain system that is a continuation of the Caledonian System of the British Isles. Norway has an average elevation of 1,600 feet (500 metres), compared with 1,000 feet (300 metres) for Europe as a whole. Rivers running westward acquired tremendous erosive power. Following fracture lines marking weaknesses in the Earth's crust, they dug out gorges and canyons that knifed deep into the jagged coast. To the east the land sloped more gently, and broader valleys were formed. During repeated periods of glaciation in the Great Ice Age of the Quaternary Period (about two million years ago) the scouring action of glaciers tonguing down the V-shaped valleys that were then part of the landscape created the magnificent U-shaped drowned fjords that now grace the western coast of Norway. Enormous masses of earth, gravel, and stone were also carried by glacial action as far south as present-day Denmark and northern Germany. The bedrock, exposed in about 40 percent of the area, was scoured and polished by the movements of these materials. The people Ethnic, linguistic, and religious composition In most parts of Norway the nucleus of the population is Nordic in heritage and appearance. Between 60 and 70 percent have blue eyes. An influx of people from southern Europe has been strong in southwestern Norway. Nord-Norge has about nine-tenths of the 20,000 to 30,000 Sami (Lapps, or Laplanders) living in Norway. Only about 2,800 of them still live on the Finnmark Plateau and move their reindeer herds down to the coast for summer grazing. The Sami were Norway's first inhabitants; they arrived at least 10,000 years ago, probably from Central Asia. The language of Norway belongs to the North Germanic branch of the Germanic language group. The Norwegian alphabet has three more letters than the Latin alphabet, , and , pronounced respectively as the vowels in bad, burn, and ball. Modern Norwegian has many dialects, but all of them, as well as the Swedish and Danish languages, are understood throughout all three of these Scandinavian countries. Until about 1850 there was only one written language, called Riksml, or Official Language, which was strongly influenced by Danish during the 434-year union of the two nations. Landsml, or Country Language, was then created out of the rural dialects. After a long feud, mostly urban-rural in makeup, the forms received equal status under the terms Dano-Norwegian (Bokml, or Book Language) and New Norwegian (Nynorsk), respectively. For more than 80 percent of schoolchildren Dano-Norwegian is the main language in local schools. About nine-tenths of all Norwegians belong to the Evangelical Lutheran national church, the Church of Norway, which is endowed by the government. The largest groups outside this establishment are Pentecostals, Roman Catholics, Lutheran Free Church members, Jehovah's Witnesses, Methodists, and Baptists. As a result of Asian immigration there also are small groups of Muslims and Buddhists. Demographic trends Largely as a result of a significant increase in the proportion of the population over age 80, the population of Norway continued to grow slowly but steadily at the end of the 20th century. The birth rate fell slightly during the 1990sbut so did the death rate, as life expectancy (about 75 years for men and about 81 years for women) was among the highest in Europe. Migration from rural to urban areas slowed in the 1980s, but movement away from Nord-Norge increased. In the mid-1990s about three-fourths of the population lived in towns and urban areas. Norway has a small but varied population of foreign nationals, the great majority of them living in urban areas. Of these, more than half are from other European countriesprimarily Denmark, Sweden, and the United Kingdom, with small groups from Pakistan and North and South America (primarily the United States). Since the 1960s Norway has practiced a strict policy concerning immigrants and refugees. Emigrationof such great importance in Norway in the 19th and early 20th centuriesceased to be of any significance, although in most years there is a small net out-migration of Norwegian nationals.