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.

Norway consists of the western part of the Scandinavian Peninsula including the island Jan Mayen and the arctic archipelago Svalbard. To the East, Norway border Sweden, Finland, and Russia. North of the mainland is the Barents Sea. To the West is the Norwegian Sea, becoming the North Sea in the southwest. In the South, Skagerak separates Denmark from Norway.

Including Svalbard and Jan Mayen, the Norwegian territory covers 386,958 square kilometers (149,404 square miles), or an area equal to the states Delaware, District of Columbia, Pennsylvania, Maryland, South Carolina, Virginia and West Virginia combined. The mainland is 1752 km (1,089 miles) from the southern to the northernmost tip. The coastline is 2650 km (1,647 miles) long, and approximately 10 times longer if the length of the fjords were included. The northern region of Norway is narrow, a mere 6.3 km (3.9 miles) at its narrowest. The country widens south of the Trondheimsfjord and is 430 km (267 miles) at its widest. At the widest point, the mountains called Langfjellene divide eastern and western Norway. Half of the country's total area lies above the timberline, 25% of the country is covered by forest, and 3% is farmland.