[4][5] The geography of the region is varied, from the Norwegian fjords in the west and Scandinavian mountains covering parts of Norway and Sweden, to the low and flat areas of Denmark in the south, as well as archipelagos and lakes in the east.

These exploits saw the establishment of the North Sea Empire which comprised large parts of Scandinavia and Great Britain, though it was relatively short-lived.

Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Iceland, and Finland all maintain welfare systems considered to be generous, with the economic and social policies of the countries being dubbed the "Nordic model".

[9] A small area along the northern coast east of the North Cape has tundra climate (Et) as a result of a lack of summer warmth.

The Scandinavian Mountains block the mild and moist air coming from the southwest, thus northern Sweden and the Finnmarksvidda plateau in Norway receive little precipitation and have cold winters.

The words Scandinavia and Scania (Skåne, the southernmost province of Sweden) are both thought to go back to the Proto-Germanic compound *Skaðin-awjō (the ð represented in Latin by t or d), which appears later in Old English as Scedenig and in Old Norse as Skáney.

[12] The earliest identified source for the name Scandinavia is Pliny the Elder's Natural History, dated to the 1st century AD.

Alternatively, Sca(n)dinavia and Skáney, along with the Old Norse goddess name Skaði, may be related to Proto-Germanic *skaðwa- (meaning "shadow").

John McKinnell comments that this etymology suggests that the goddess Skaði may have once been a personification of the geographical region of Scandinavia or associated with the underworld.

In Jordanes' history of the Goths (AD 551), the form Scandza is the name used for their original home, separated by sea from the land of Europe (chapter 1, 4).

[18] Where Jordanes meant to locate this quasi-legendary island is still a hotly debated issue, both in scholarly discussions and in the nationalistic discourse of various European countries.

[23][24] In Beowulf, the forms Scedenige and Scedeland are used while the Alfredian translation of Orosius and Wulfstan's travel accounts used the Old English Sconeg.

Svennung considers the Sámi name to have been introduced as a loanword from the North Germanic languages;[25] "Skaði" is the jötunn stepmother of Freyr and Freyja in Norse mythology.

Rather the word was brought into use in Europe by scholars borrowing the term from ancient sources like Pliny, and was used vaguely for Scania and the southern region of the peninsula.

[29] The popular usage of the term in Sweden, Denmark and Norway as a unifying concept became established in the 19th century through poems such as Hans Christian Andersen's "I am a Scandinavian" of 1839.

The dependent territories Iceland, the Faroe Islands and Greenland, historically part of Norway, remained with Denmark in accordance with the Treaty of Kiel.

[citation needed] In this sense the term refers primarily to native Danes, Norwegians and Swedes as well as descendants of Scandinavian settlers such as the Icelanders and the Faroese.

That influence was due not only to proximity, but also to the rule of Denmark—and later Denmark-Norway—over the German-speaking region of Holstein, and to Sweden's close trade with the Hanseatic League.

[63] Swedish spoken in today's Finland includes a lot of words that are borrowed from Finnish, whereas the written language remains closer to that of Sweden.

[64] The coastal province of Ostrobothnia has a Swedish-speaking majority, whereas plenty of areas on this coastline are nearly unilingually Finnish, like the region of Satakunta.

[68] A key ancient description of Scandinavia was provided by Pliny the Elder, though his mentions of Scatinavia and surrounding areas are not always easy to decipher.

The name Scandia, later used as a synonym for Scandinavia, also appears in Pliny's Naturalis Historia (Natural History), but is used for a group of Northern European islands which he locates north of Britannia.

[14] The Viking age in Scandinavia lasted from approximately 793–1066 AD and saw Scandinavians participate in large scale raiding, colonization, conquest and trading throughout Europe and beyond.

[73] During this time Scandinavians were drawn to wealthy towns, monasteries and petty kingdoms overseas in places such as the British Isles, Ireland, the Baltic coast and Normandy, all of which made profitable targets for raids.

Scandinavians, primarily from modern day Sweden, known as Varangians also ventured east into what is now Russia raiding along river trade routes.

During this period unification also took place between different Scandinavian kingdoms culminating in the peak of the North Sea Empire which included large parts of Scandinavia and Great Britain.

The 1660 Treaty of Copenhagen forced Sweden to return Bornholm and Trøndelag to Denmark–Norway, and to give up its recent claims to the island Funen.

[79] Denmark–Norway as a historiographical name refers to the former political union consisting of the kingdoms of Denmark and Norway, including the Norwegian dependencies of Iceland, Greenland and the Faroe Islands.

Following a Swedish invasion during the summer, the peace conditions of the Convention of Moss (14 August 1814) specified that king Christian Frederik had to resign, but Norway would keep its independence and its constitution within a personal union with Sweden.

All five Nordic governments participate in the joint promotional efforts in the United States through the Scandinavian Tourist Board of North America.