Facts About Norway Stegasteinen viewpoint in Aurland. Photo: Sverre Hjørnevik/fjordnorway.com

10 Facts About Norway

1. The monetary unit in Norway is the Norwegian krone, NOK.

2. The length of the Norwegian coastline is 25.148 km, including fjords.

3. The highest peak in Norway is Galdhøpiggen 2469 meters above the sea.

4. Norway and Europe’s northernmost point is the North Cape.

5. Kirkenes, Norway, is as far east as Cairo, farther east than Finland, and only 9 miles (15 km) from the Russian border.

6. Norway has the highest concentration of fjords in the world. Two of these, the Geiranger Fjord and the Nærøy fjord, feature on the Unesco World Heritage List.

7. The Lærdal Tunnel is the world’s longest road tunnel at 15 miles (24.5 km).

8. The Nobel Peace Prize is awarded in Norway by a Norwegian committee.

9. Snorre Sturluson’s Heimskringla (The History of Kings), written in the Old Norse Period (A.D. 750–1300), is still a bestseller in Norway today.

10. Norway was one of the founding nations of the United Nations in 1945, and the first U.N. Secretary-General was Norwegian Foreign Minister, Trygve Lie.

10 Fun Facts About Norway

Nils Olav inspects the Kings Guard of Norway. Photo: Mark Owens/Crown copyright.

1. Norway introduced salmon sushi to the Japanese in the eighties

2. The paper clip is a Norwegian invention

3. In 2008, Norway knighted a king penguin. Nils Olav is his name.

4. The famous and expensive Voss Water is just water from the municipal supply in Iveland, Norway.

5. Sweden is so good at recycling, it now runs out of garbage to recycle and now imports garbage from Norway to fuel its energy programs.

6. In 1251, Henry III of England was given a polar bear by the King of Norway. He kept it in the Tower of London, on a long chain so that it could swim in the Thames.

7. In 2011, Norway went through a nationwide butter shortage, where smugglers would often get caught smuggling butter and online auctions for one packet of butter reached as high as $77.

8. IKEA names sofas, coffee tables, bookshelves, media storage and doorknobs after places in Sweden; beds, wardrobes and hall furniture after places in Norway; carpets after places in Denmark and dining tables and chairs after places in Finland.

9. Dying is illegal in Longyearbyen, as bodies aren’t buried anymore because the permafrost in that town prevents them from decomposing.

10. Frozen pizza is so popular in Norway that when a popular brand released a new jingle, it reached #1 on the Norwegian charts.