Northern Europe is region of Europe in the North of the Baltic Sea.

Northern Europe region

Countries

• Denmark
• Finland
• Iceland
• Norway
• Sweden

Other territories

• Faroe Islands — administered by Denmark
• Svalbard — administered by Norway
• Åland — administered by Finland
• Greenland is sometimes associated with Nordic Europe, because of its relationship to Denmark and its associate membership in the Nordic Council.

Understand

The terms Nordic countries and Scandinavia are often used as synonyms, but strictly speaking this is not correct: Scandinavia covers only Sweden, Norway and Denmark, not Finland and Iceland.

The name Scandinavia comes from the Skandage body of water sandwiched between Norway, Sweden, and Jutland. The culture of Scandinavian countries are very close and the languages mutually intelligible. In writing, the difference between the Danish and Norwegian languages are not much bigger than the difference between English and American English, though it will often be harder in oral conversations. Swedish is slightly different from the other two but is more similar to spoken Norwegian than is spoken Danish. The Scandinavian languages are North Germanic, strongly influenced by Low Saxon (Ancient German).

Iceland was a Norwegian and then Danish colony until 1944. The language of Iceland is also Scandinavian in origin, being based on Old Norse, but it diverged a long time ago and written Icelandic, in particular, is nearly unchanged from the 13th century. The spoken language is generally unintelligible to others in the Nordics.

The Finno-Ugric language of Finland is entirely unrelated with Scandinavian languages, although most people in Finland also speak some Swedish, as the country is officially bilingual and all Finns learn Swedish in school.

Get around

By train

The ScanRail pass offers unlimited train travel in Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden.

The 5-day Flexipass is valid only for 15 days if purchased in the Nordic countries, and the 10-day version can only be purchased outside. In addition to free travel in the region, you can also take night trains to/from Berlin (Germany) with the pass.