Finland

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Finland is a country which I only briefly have visited along the boarder of Sweden. I still find I have a connection to Finland as my grandfather is Finnish. Yet again the video above created by Geography now is a great video for learning about Finland. I would highly recommend that you watch that video before reading the rest of this.
The first thing one should not about Finland is that it is not part of Scandinavia. It is located to the east of Scandinavia and west of Russia. The capital city is Helskinki which is the second northern most capital in the world after Reykjavik, Iceland. The Finnish language bears no resemblance to the northern germanic languages and is in fact part of its own language group.  It has over 180'000 islands part of the Åland archipelago, which is an autonomous region but belongs to Finland and... they speak Swedish. The Northern part of Finland is within the arctic circle which means it experiences the midnight sun during the Summer in the North and barely any sun during the Winter, however you may see the aurora borealis. It is also notable for being the home of Santa Clause.  

Finland is a relatively flat country apart from in the north where the highest peak is mount Halti (which technically belongs to Norway, but Norway plans on giving it to Finland this year because of its 100year anniversary of independence. Finland is within the top three countries for air quality, which may be because over 80% of the country is covered in forestry. This makes Finland the biggest producer of wood in the EU. There is over 188'000 lakes in 'lakeland'. Finland is the most 'swampy' country in the EU. The finish for swamp is 'suo' and the Finnish for Finland is 'Suomi'. There is perhaps a connection.

There is 5.5million people in Finland is the most sparsely populated country in the EU. The main language is finish as I have mentioned. Finnish is arguably one of the hardest languages to learn because of the immensely complicated grammar rules. Even so, Finland has arguably the best educated system in the world. Because of this, Finland has very good proficiency in english. Finland is also one of the remaining countries in the world that still has conscription. Which demands usually in the region of one year of military service. Åland is exempt but, they have to serve in some other part of the civil service. Saunas were invented in Finland and are a massive part of their culture.

Finland is a country which I would like to visit again and perhaps more thoroughly the next time.


Thanks !

Denmark

Before I mention anything, this is a very short video clip about the geography of Denmark which I found very useful and informative when writing this post. Credit to the geography now channel!

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Denmark is the southern most nordic country. It effectively connects Scandinavia with mainland Europe. Denmark is made up of 1419 Island, 74 of which are inhabited. The largest is Sjælland. The capital city is Copenhagen(Køvenhavn).

Denmark is an extremely flat country with its highest point being a mere 170m above sea level. Only 13% of its land is forested and the rest being used for agriculture. The majority of the land is rolling hills, sandy beaches and small green island which people tend to go to for camping holidays. Unlike the rest of the nordic countries, it rarely snows in Denmark. It does get cold enough but it doesn't actually snow because of the pressure systems.

The population of Denmark is roughly 5.7 million people. It is one of the most highly taxed countries in the world and was also shown to be the 'happiest' country in the world several times in recent years.  This was however stolen by Norway this year. The background cultural context of Denmark, like many of the other Nordic countries is vikings.

In Denmark people speak Danish. Denmark is where all of the northern germanic and germanic languages are thought to have been born. Originally people would've spoken proto-germanic around 300BCE, then moving onto proto-norse and then eventually onto old norse, east and west norse and gutnish and then further splitting into all of the modern northern germanic languages (Danish,  Swedish, Norweigan, Gutnish(spoken on the island of Gotland to an extent), Faroese and Icelandic). All of these languages are relatively intelligible with each other depending on which dialects you encounter. There is an old saying that many Swedish and Norwegian people will hold close to their hearts, 'Swedish and Norwegian sound like fairies are speaking, but that danish sounds like someone speaking with a potato stuffed down their throats. I have no comment on this. It is also perhaps worth mentioning that LEGO and loudspeakers were invented in Denmark.

Denmark has been part of many interesting projects, such as 'Øresundsbron' the oresunds bridge connecting Sweden with Copenhagen. This has greatly boosted the local economies by greatly shortening the commute between Malmö(Sweden) and Copenhagen. Getting to Denmark is fairly simple, one can fly to Copenhagen or take a train from anywhere in Europe. The airport in Copenhagen has excellent transport links to Sweden, Copenhagen city centre(by metro, train, bus or taxi) as well as the rest of Denmark.

Denmark is a country which I have visited on many occasions and would highly recommend that you all travel there.
Thanks!

Svalbard

The next country on my list is Norway. I decided however to initially look away from the mainland. Svalbard is unique in the world for many reasons.Svalbard is an archipelago located north of Scandinavia. I have visited the mainland of Norway many times but, I've never been to Svalbard. This is mainly because of its remoteness and as I'm a dependant to my family I've been unable to convince them to bring me there thus far.




The main town in Svalbard is called 'Longyearbyen'. Longyearbyen is the most northerly town (not settlement) in the world. Only beaten by Atlas which is not permanently inhabited. The Norwegian government has been able to keep Svalbard populated by making it a so called 'tax haven'. This means that the inhabitants do not pay tax there. However, even though there is always a reasonably sized population(roughly ~2500 people) they are not necessarily living there permanently. Scientific researchers move to Svalbard for perhaps a year at a time and then leave again. Nasa for example has a research base at 'Ny-Ålesund'. This has been hugely successful with people working there for a period of time and earing large sums of money. Tying in with science and research, the so called 'Doomsday Vault' is situated in Svalbard. This is basically an enormous seed vault. Which could save the world in a post-apocalyptic scenario. However, it saw its first withdrawal in 2015 due to the Syrian conflict.




Tourism is a major industry in Svalbard. Many people visit to experience the natural beauty. Many people may enjoy hiking or camping. Many people would recommend that one should visit three separate time: once during the winter, when there is 24 hours of night, once in the summer when there is 24 hours of day and, once in the middle twilight period between the two. Many people also come during the winter in order to see the Aurora Borealis. There is however, many more accessible places to view these.












Credit: https://c1.staticflickr.com/9/8803/29209961393_33b11db5b8_b.jpg





The physical geography of Svalbard is staggering. There are two main islands, with small 'lands' to divide them up.It is home to many glaciers, fjords, rivers and, mountains. The highest peak in Svalbard is 'Newtontoppen' at 1'713m. Its largest glacier is 'Austfonna' at 8,492 km² .

Svalbard, in conclusion is a place to which I'd love to travel. Getting there is however not that easy. Firstly, one can fly directly from Oslo to Longyearbyen, many of the Norweijan fjord cruises now make a stop in Longyearbyen in Svalbard. Personally I would prefer to fly there should I decide to visit.

Thank you for reading! Hope you enjoyed.

Jonah