Norway consists of the western and northern section of the Scandinavian peninsula, as well as the arctic island archipelago Svalbard plus Jan Mayen. To the east of Norway lies Sweden, Finland and Russia. To the west, the North Sea and the Atlantic Ocean. To the north is the Barents Sea, to the south, the North Sea. Including Svalbard and Jan Mayen, the Norwegian territory covers 386,958 square kilometers. 

The mainland is long - 1752 km from the southern to the northernmost tip. The coastline itself is 2650 km long, if you were to include the length of all the fingers of the fjords it would be 10 times longer. The northern region of Norway is narrow, a mere 6.3 km at its narrowest. Norway is a constitutional monarchy. Its population is 4,445,000 (1999), giving a population density of 13.7 per km². The capital city of Oslo has almost 500 000 inhabitants.

In Norway, skis have been necessary because of geographical and weather conditions. A rock carving from North Norway called «the Rødøy Man» is assumed to depict a Norwegian skiing already 4000 years ago. Norse mythology speaks of skiing and hunting in the heroic poems. Telemark is considered «the cradle of ski sport» because Sondre Nordheim from Morgedal revolutionised skiing and rekindled interest in the sport in the 1870 -1880's. He began using stiff bindings around the heel so that the skier could turn and jump without losing his skies. The «Telemark» ski he constructed was narrower at the middle and became the prototype for all later ski production. Morgedal was as such a natural place for the Olympic flame to be lit before the Lillehammer Olympics in 1994. 

The world knows Norway as the Land of the Midnight Sun. But, it is only in the north that the sun truly never sets during the summer months. Tourists who visit this region during the summer will experience the Midnight Sun fully in clear weather, but even if it is cloudy, these light nights are still a completely unique experience. Nights are light during the summer in the rest of the country too, with sunset as late as 22.30 and sunrise again at 03.00.

During the dark winter months, North Norway has yet another remarkable phenomenon - the Northern Lights - or Aurora Borealis, that flames across the heavens in varying intensity and form. They can manifest as rays arcs or curtains of color that range from greenish white to deep red. Seeing the Northern Lights blazing across the winter night is an extraordinary and mystical experience. Northern Lights is caused by charged particles from the sun that get caught in the Earth's magnetic field, causing air molecules and atoms to light up. During winter the Northern Lights can sometimes be seen across southern Norway as well.