World Country Norway

About the world country Norway, its location, size, population, and who is in power.

NATIONS OF THE WORLD

NORWAY

Location: Western edge of the Scandinavian Peninsula in northern Europe, plus islands in the Arctic Ocean. Size: 125,181 sq. mi. (324,219 sq. km.). Population: 4,115,000.

Who Really Rules: Norway is a constitutional monarchy with a multiparty elected parliament, the Storting. The ruling party is the social democratic Labor party, which has a strong rural and environmentalist base. Most of the economy is privately owned. High taxes support a comprehensive welfare state. With the discovery of oil and gas in the North Sea, the already rich Norwegians were nicknamed Blue-Eyed Arabs, but many Norwegians fear the changes that oil dollars may bring. Norway's petroleum industry is run by the state-owned company Statoil.

Norway is a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). It operates spy and communications bases and contains "prepositioned" conventional weapons, but it refuses to permit foreign bases operated by its allies.