Scandinavia

The northern quarter of Europe, comprising the eastern verge of the North Sea and the western coast of the Baltic. This rugged and mountainous land has had a profound impact on European and world history, in the vitality and strength of its native population.

This covers: Aatundaland, Agder, Åland, Alvheim, Angeln, Birka, Bornholm, Brännö, Dalarna, Denmark, Eastern Götland, the Faeroe Islands, Fjadryndaland, Fjordane, Gordum, Gotland, Götland, Haithabu, Halland, Halogaland, Hedeby, Hedmark, Hólar, Hordaland, Iceland, Jadar, Jamtland, Jomsberg, Jutland, More & Romsdale, Namdale, Nerike, Norway, Öland, Reidgotaland, Reudigni Reykjavik, Ringerike, Rogaland, Romerike, Scania, Sjaelland, Skálholt, Slesvig, Småland, Sodermanland, Sogn, Solor, Sondmor, Svithjod, Sweden, Tiundaland, Uppsala, Vendeyssel, Vestfold, Viken, Vingulmark, and Vorz.

Files for neighboring regions: the Baltic, the British Isles, Germany, North America, Russia.
AATUNDALAND A petty kingdom in Sweden.


AGDER The southernmost tip of Norway, just west of Vestfold and the Oslo region.


ÅLAND (Ahvenanmaa)A group of islands in the Baltic about halfway between Finland and Sweden. The population is historically and culturally Swedish; their fate has been a source of some contention between the two countries. Today the Åland group form a self-governing dependency of Finland.


ALVHEIM A Kingdom in southern Norway.


ANGELN A district in the frontier region between Germany and Denmark; a portion of modern Schleswig-Holstein. This was the home of the Angli, a Teuto-Norse people closely related to the Jutes, Danes, and Germans who were their neighbours. A large portion of them migrated into Britain at the beginning of the 6th century, there to establish East Anglia. Although never dominant among the Germanic invaders of the Isles, their contribution to the migration was of lasting significance: their name, Anglaland, i.e. England.


BIRKA Viking-age market town situated on the island of Bjorko, near modern Stockholm. Birka was the major trade center of early Sweden. It was frequented by merchants from France, Britain, northern Europe, and even Khazaria. Birka may be regarded as one of the terminus points of the Silk Road, and coins minted in Khazaria and the Middle East have been found in the town and its environs. Some recent scholars have claimed that Birka was actually a Khazar colony founded to facilitate trade with the North; however, this claim is not widely accepted.


BLEKINGE A province in far southeastern Sweden, to the south of Småland and just east of Scania.


BORNHOLM An island in the Baltic Sea, just off the southern tip of Sweden. Historically connected with Scania, it was known in ancient times as Burgundarholm or Burgendaland, leading some to speculate that it was the ancestral home of the Burgundians.


BRÄNNÖ An island in the Southern Göteborg Archipelago of southwestern Sweden, with about 800 inhabitants. On the Kattegat a few miles offshore from the city of Göteborg, it is about 30 miles (48 km.) east-northeast of the little Danish island of Læsø. Its urban area is also known as Brännö, and has about 620 inhabitants (2000). Administratively it belongs to the parish of Styrsö within Gothenburg Municipality. In the Dark Ages it was likely inhabited by the clan called the Brondings in Anglo-Saxon tradition.


DALARNA (Dalecarlia) A historical province or landskap in central Sweden. A common English name form is Dalecarlia or Dalekarlia (Peasant-Valley). Dalarna adjoins Härjedalen, Hälsingland, Gästrikland, Västmanland and Värmland. It is also bounded by Norway in the west. The word "Dalarna" means "the dales." In the western districts of Älvdalen and Lima some people in villages speak an obscure dialect, the Dalecarlian language, which was written in a variant of the ancient runic script until the 20th century. The region was rich in iron and was known in ancient times as "Jarnberaland", or "iron-bearing land"; it was an important mining region into modern times.


DENMARK The first eighteen or so names on this list are almost certainly legendary only, and dates given before about 800 CE should be approached with considerable skepticism. The individuals listed between 510 and 803 probably have one degree of historical reality or another. Like most lands, Denmark was originally home to a large number of local clans and petty kingdoms - see Gordum, Hedeby, Jutland, Reidgotaland, Sjaelland, Slesvik, and Vendsyssel.. The realm as we know it was not successfully unified until about 975 CE.


FAEROE ISLANDSAn archipelago in the North Sea, above Britain. The local legislature, the Lagting, has met every year since 970, except for the period 1816-1852


FJADRYNDALAND A petty kingdom in Sweden.


FJORDANE The heavily indented coastal region between Möre and Bergen in Norway.


GORDUM An early medieval kingdom in Denmark.


GOTLAND A large island within the Baltic Sea, near the southeastern coast of Sweden.


GÖTLAND (The Geats)Not to be confused with the island of almost the same name listed just above, this is a region in south-central Sweden, well-known as the possible earliest homeland of the Gothic nation, and also as the homeland of the semi-mythological Beowulf.


HÅLOGALAND An old province in central Norway, once a local Kingdom before the unification of the nation.


HÄRJEDALEN A rural province in west-central Sweden, from which a disproportionate number of immigrants to the American State of Minnesota came from.


HEDEBY A site (now uninhabited) in the southeastern corner of the Jutland Peninsula, near the modern town of Schleswig, in Germany. Established as a trade center in the 8th century CE, it was a vibrant and dynamic community for more than 250 years  in the late Dark Ages.


HEDMARK (Hedemarken) A modern county in Norway running along the Swedish border north of Vestfold. In early Mediaeval times Hedmark was an independent kingdom, later it retained much autonomy under the early Norwegian kings.


HORDALAND The coastal region north of Rogaland and south of Sogn. The chief modern city is the port of Bergen. It is uncertain where these first three names fit in the general Hordaland chronology.


ICELAND It is not known when Iceland was first seen by men. There is circumstantial evidence to suggest that it was known in Classical times, under the name of Thule Ultima. It is known that from perhaps 400 CE onwards, the island was occasional visited and even settled by Celtic fishermen and anchorites. They have left virtual no trace of their occupation of the place, and it was left to the Scandinavians, whose first colonies on the island date from 874 CE, to settle it in any extensive way. Settlements grew rapidly in the 10th century, mainly from Norwegian Vikings and migrants, but there was no organized government beyond the whim of local landholders until the first legislature, the Althing, was established in 930. As a linguistic note, be aware of two special characters present here: "Þ" represents a hard "th" sound similar to the first phoneme in "Thought"; "ð" represents a soft "th" sound similar to the first phoneme in "That".


ICELANDIC BISHOPS Here are the successions of the two Mediaeval Bishoprics in Iceland, both of which became Lutheran in the 16th century, and both combined in the late 1790's in a new residence at Reykjavik. As a linguistic note, be aware of two special characters present here: "Þ" represents a hard "th" sound similar to the first phoneme in "Thought"; "ð" represents a soft "th" sound similar to the first phoneme in "That". Bishops (Lutheran) of Reykjavik


JADAR A petty kingdom in southern Norway.


JÄMTLAND An inland district in western Sweden, on the Norwegian frontier east of Trondheim. The region was a refuge for Norwegians fleeing the forced consolidation of that state in the late 9th century, and has always had a reputation for rough and sturdy independence.


JOMSBERG Unusual for this archive, this is a listing for a place whose location is not known. The best evidence suggests that the citadel of Jomsberg lay in extreme northeastern Germany, on the coast of Pomerania near the near the modern Polish frontier, perhaps not far from the modern city of Wollin. But territory is less important than purpose here: According to some Old Norse sources (the historiocity of which is challenged by many modern historians) Jomsberg was the base of an order of Pagan warriors, very similar in many respects to later crusading orders of chivalry, except that money, not religious zeal, motivated them: they were mercenaries to whoever would pay their battle-fee. They lived in a tightly disciplined male-only community, and were a force to be reckoned with in early Mediaeval Scandinavia.


JUTLAND Mainland Denmark; the peninsula on the western side of the Kingdom. Vaguely known of in classical times by Graeco-Romans, and called by them "Cimbria". It has been the home of the Jutes for ages, these being a Teutonic folk closely related to both Germans in the south and Norse to the east and north. They migrated in large numbers into Britain, during the Anglo-Saxon invasions at the beginning of the Dark Ages.


MÖRE and ROMSDALE A string of provinces along the Norwegian coast, west and south of Trondheim.


NAMDALE A district in central Norway, independent before unification in the late 9th century.


NERIKE A petty kingdom in southern Sweden.


NORWAYThe process of unification in Norway began with the conquests of Harald Fairhair in the late 9th century, but was not completed before the beginning of the 11th. Dates before 900 should be approached with skepticism. Norway was united with Denmark in personal union from the 14th century; in 1814 it was detached from Denmark, and amalgamated with Sweden. Norway seceded from Sweden in 1905, and established a separate dynasty.


ÖLAND A long and narrow island paralleling the southeastern coast of Sweden opposite the city of Kalmar. Öland is the second largest Swedish island and the smallest of the traditional provinces of Sweden. It is connected to the mainland across the Kalmar Strait through the Öland bridge, which opened in 1972. In Old English the island was known as Eowland, and was inhabited by a Teutonic tribe called the Eowan.


REIDGOTALAND An early Scandanavian kingdom. Its exact location is disputed. Some place the kingdom in southern Norway, while others in what is now Jylland district at the northern tip of the Jutland penninsula of Denmark.


REUDIGNI (Rondings) The Reudigni were one of the Nerthus-worshipping Germanic tribes mentioned by Tacitus in his "Germania." In Widsith they are called the Rondings. They have otherwise been lost to history, but they may have lived in Denmark prior to the arrival of the Daner recorded by Jordanes. The name lives on as the root for in the name Randers and Randsfjord, Denmark.


RINGERIKE (Hringarike) A district in central southeastern Norway, to the north of Oslo. According to local tradition the name derives from the Hringari tribe, the original inhabitants of the region.


ROGALAND The southwesternmost province in Norway. The chief modern city is the port of Stavanger.


ROMERIKE A kingdom in southern Norway.


SCANIA The far southern end of Sweden, and thereby of considerable strategic importance in it's being more-or-less adjacent to all three of the major Scandinavian powers.


SJAELLAND (ZEALAND) An island in eastern Denmark, between the Kattegat and the Baltic Sea. Denmark’s largest island, it is separated from Fyn by the Store Bælt and from Sweden by the Øresund. Sjælland includes most of Copenhagen, the Danish capital, and the cities of Roskilde, Helsingør, Hillerød, Holbæk, Næstved, Køge, and Birkerød.


SLESVIG In German, Schleswig. The territory at the base of the Jutland peninsula, with close ties to both Denmark and Germany. United with Holstein from 1386.


SMÅLAND An area in the south of Götland. It is a historical province (landskap) of Sweden. Småland borders Blekinge, Scania or Skåne, Halland, Västergötland, Östergötland and the island Öland in the Baltic Sea. The name Småland literally means "Small lands." The region includes the city of Kalmar, one of the oldest and most important in Sweden. In the 19th century, Småland was characterized by poverty, and had a substantial emigration to North America, which additionally hampered its development. The majority of emigrants ended up in Minnesota, with a geography resembling Sweden, combining arable land with forest and lakes. Today it is best known as the home of Carl Linneus and the furniture giant Ikea, both natives of the city of Älmhult.


SÖDERMANLAND A minor kingdom in early Sweden - still in existence today as a province, on the Baltic cost east and southeast of modern Stockholm and earlier Uppsala. The name means "land of the South-men", and was assigned to the area by the Swedes of the Uppsala region from their geographic perspective.