50 Fun Facts About Northern Europe

Which Northern European city is the world's northernmost capital of a sovereign state?

Reykjavík sits at 64°08′ N, about four kilometres south of Greenland's Nuuk, which misses the title because Greenland is not an independent state.

Which Danish toy company takes its name from a phrase meaning "play well"?

Lego is a contraction of the Danish words leg godt. Founder Ole Kirk Christiansen was a carpenter, and the company made wooden toys before it made plastic bricks.

Which wireless standard is named after a 10th-century king who united the tribes of Denmark?

Bluetooth honours King Harald Bluetooth, and its logo merges the runes for his initials, H and B.

Which Icelandic volcano's 2010 ash cloud closed most of Europe's airspace for nearly a week?

Eyjafjallajökull sits directly under the jet stream, which carried its ash over the continent. About 20 countries shut their skies, affecting roughly 10 million travellers.

Which furniture retailer did 17-year-old Ingvar Kamprad found as a Swedish mail-order business?

IKEA joins its founder's initials to those of Elmtaryd, the family farm, and Agunnaryd, his home village in southern Sweden.

Which Finnish bathing custom did UNESCO add to its Intangible Cultural Heritage list in 2020?

Sauna culture runs so deep in Finland that official registers count at least two million of the heated rooms, for about 5.5 million people.

Which Swedish pop group won the 1974 Eurovision Song Contest with the song Waterloo?

ABBA sang their winning entry in English instead of Swedish, and went on to sell more than 150 million records.

Which summer phenomenon brings 24-hour daylight to the far north of Norway, Sweden and Finland?

Midnight sun lasts a single day at the Arctic Circle itself, but the season stretches to about six months at the North Pole.

In which city did the Harland and Wolff shipyard build the RMS Titanic?

Belfast's Harland and Wolff yard built the liner for the White Star Line, a customer it had served since 1867.

Hákarl, an Icelandic national dish with a strong ammonia smell, is the fermented meat of which animal?

Shark meat of the Greenland species is poisonous when fresh, so Icelanders ferment it and then hang it to dry for four to five months.

Which far-northern region of Finland promotes its main town, Rovaniemi, as the hometown of Santa Claus?

Lapland has been tied to Santa since 1927, when a Finnish radio host announced that he lived on Korvatunturi, a fell in the region.

Which capital is home to Tivoli Gardens and a harbourside statue of the Little Mermaid?

Copenhagen keeps the mermaid on its Langelinie promenade, where she is one of the city's most-visited attractions.

Which Scandinavian city is spread across fourteen islands where Lake Mälaren flows into the sea?

Stockholm is said to have been founded by Birger Jarl to guard Sweden against invasions from the sea.

Which artist painted The Scream, versions of which were stolen in Norway in 1994 and 2004?

Edvard Munch made several versions of the image, and both stolen ones were recovered. An 1895 pastel fetched almost $120 million at auction in 2012.

Which author, born in Odense in 1805, wrote The Ugly Duckling and The Snow Queen?

Hans Christian Andersen also wrote The Emperor's New Clothes and Thumbelina, and his tales have inspired ballets, plays and films.

Which Swedish inventor of dynamite left his fortune to fund annual prizes that still bear his name?

Alfred Nobel held 355 patents, and by his death his business had set up more than 90 explosives and armament factories.

Which explorer led the five-man party that first reached the South Pole in December 1911?

Roald Amundsen, a Norwegian, had already led the first expedition to sail through the Northwest Passage, between 1903 and 1906.

Which Norse explorer is thought to have reached North America about 500 years before Columbus?

Leif Erikson grew up in Greenland, in the first Norse settlement there, which his father Erik the Red had founded.

Which Danish word for a mood of cosy contentment made Collins Dictionary's 2016 word of the year shortlist?

Hygge is an everyday word in Norwegian too, but only in Denmark has it become a badge of national identity.

Which Northern Irish landmark of some 40,000 basalt columns does legend credit to Finn MacCool?

Giant's Causeway was really formed by an ancient volcanic eruption, though the tale has Finn building it after a challenge from a Scottish rival, Benandonner.

Which Scottish lake contains more water than all the lakes of England and Wales combined?

Loch Ness owes its volume to depth, not spread: it is only the second-largest Scottish loch by surface area, behind Loch Lomond.

Which peak, at 1,345 metres, is the highest mountain in the British Isles?

Ben Nevis still carries the ruins of a summit observatory that was staffed continuously from 1883 to 1904.

Which Roman frontier, begun in AD 122, runs 73 miles across northern England?

Hadrian's Wall inspired the vast wall of ice in George R. R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire, the novels behind Game of Thrones.

Which 1998 peace deal ended most of the violence of the Troubles in Northern Ireland?

The Good Friday Agreement was put to voters across the island of Ireland, who approved it in two referendums held on the same day in May 1998.

Which Dublin stout's first brewer signed a 9,000-year lease on the St. James's Gate brewery in 1759?

Guinness founder Arthur Guinness agreed to pay just £45 a year for the disused brewery, which grew into one of the largest in the British Empire.

Which capital, with a castle perched on an extinct volcano, hosts the huge Fringe arts festival?

Edinburgh has been recognised as Scotland's capital since at least the 15th century, and its Fringe is the world's largest annual international arts festival.

Norway's sovereign wealth fund, set up in 1990, invests the surplus revenue from which North Sea resource?

Oil gives the Government Pension Fund Global its everyday Norwegian nickname, Oljefondet, which means the Oil Fund.

Which music streaming service did Daniel Ek and Martin Lorentzon found in Sweden in April 2006?

Spotify was conceived as a legal alternative to music piracy and launched in several European markets in October 2008.

Which red-haired Swedish storybook heroine is strong enough to lift her horse with one hand?

Pippi Longstocking was named by author Astrid Lindgren's daughter Karin, who asked her mother for a get-well story while off school.

Which Finnish company began as a pulp mill in 1865 and later led the world in mobile phone sales?

Nokia shares its name with the Finnish town near which it opened a second mill in 1868, and it overtook Motorola as the best-selling mobile phone brand in 1998.

Which country, where Skype's software was written, held the first nationwide internet vote in 2005?

Estonia let voters cast binding ballots online in its 2005 local elections, and in 2014 it became the first state to offer e-residency to foreigners.

Which country, once in a commonwealth with Poland, was the first Soviet republic to declare independence?

Lithuania made its declaration in March 1990, and the other fourteen republics followed over the next 21 months.

Which capital's medieval Old Town, a World Heritage Site, lies just 80 kilometres south of Helsinki?

Tallinn became known as Reval in the Scandinavian and German languages after a Danish conquest in 1219.

Which Scandinavian city was called Christiania, in honour of a king, until it was renamed in 1925?

Oslo took the name Christiania after a fire in 1624, when the king had a new city built closer to Akershus Fortress.

Which northernmost arm of the Baltic Sea separates Sweden's east coast from Finland's west coast?

The Gulf of Bothnia is so nearly fresh in its far north that freshwater fish such as pike and perch thrive in it.

Which crossing, opened in 2000, carries road and rail traffic between Sweden and Denmark?

The Øresund Bridge runs nearly 8 km from the Swedish coast to an artificial island, Peberholm, where a 4 km tunnel completes the crossing.

Which Arctic archipelago, midway between Norway and the North Pole, houses the Global Seed Vault?

Svalbard was chosen because it lacks tectonic activity and its permafrost would keep the seeds cold even if the electricity failed.

Which self-governing archipelago of the Kingdom of Denmark lies about halfway between Iceland and Norway?

The Faroe Islands probably take their name from words meaning sheep islands, after the flocks that abound there.

Which Indigenous people of northern Norway, Sweden and Finland are best known for herding reindeer?

Sámi life is far wider than herding: as of 2007 only about 10% of the people were connected to it, and their music is known for a vocal tradition called the joik.

In Norse mythology, valkyries carry warriors who die in battle to which hall, to live alongside Odin?

Valhalla is no place of rest: the warriors chosen to live there prepare every day for Ragnarök, the end of the world.

Which Swedish warship sank about 1,300 metres into its maiden voyage in 1628 and was salvaged in 1961?

Vasa was too top-heavy and went down minutes after meeting a wind stronger than a breeze. The hull spent 333 years on the seabed and came up largely intact.

Which pact, designed by Queen Margaret I, put Denmark, Norway and Sweden under one monarch from 1397?

The Kalmar Union lasted until 1523, when Sweden broke away for good under a newly elected king of its own.

Which medieval network of merchant guilds, grown from Lübeck, dominated North and Baltic Sea trade?

The Hanseatic League ran trading posts called Kontors as far apart as London, Bruges, Bergen and Novgorod, each with considerable legal autonomy.

Which conflict began with a Soviet invasion of Finland in November 1939 and lasted three and a half months?

The Winter War cost Finland about a tenth of its territory, yet the country kept its sovereignty and enhanced its international reputation.

What name is given to the 1987–1991 movement that restored independence to the three Baltic states?

The Singing Revolution drew its name from mass singing demonstrations, and in 1989 about two million people joined hands in a human chain across all three countries.

Which island monastery suffered the raid of 793 that traditionally marks the start of the Viking Age?

Lindisfarne, off the coast of Northumberland, was founded around 634 by the Irish monk Aidan and had become a centre of learning by the time the raiders came.

Which Icelandic parliament, founded in 930, is often called the world's oldest legislature?

The Althing met at Thingvellir, whose name means assembly fields, for more than eight centuries, until 1798.

Which Norwegian fjord, nicknamed the King of the Fjords, is the country's longest and deepest?

Sognefjord stretches 205 kilometres inland from the ocean and plunges to 1,308 metres below sea level.

Which composer of Finlandia is often credited with helping Finland develop a stronger national identity?

Jean Sibelius wrote during years of attempted Russification, and his music became a symbol of national feeling; seven symphonies form the core of his work.

Which family of hippo-like trolls was created by the Finnish writer and illustrator Tove Jansson?

Moomins made their author famous worldwide, yet Jansson, though Finnish, wrote the books in Swedish.