Nordic countries
The Nordic countries make up a region in Northern Europe, sometimes called the Nordic region, consisting of Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden and their associated territories which include the Faroe Islands, Greenland, and Åland. In English, Scandinavia is sometimes used as a rough synonym for the Nordic countries.
The region's five nation-states and three autonomous regions share much common history as well as common traits in their respective societies, such as political systems. Politically, Nordic countries do not form a separate entity, but they co-operate in the Nordic Council. Linguistically, the area is heterogeneous, with two unrelated language groups, the North Germanic branch of Indo-European languages and the Finnic and Sami branches of Uralic languages.
The Nordic countries have a combined population of approximately 28 million people as of 2024, of whom 20 - 21 million wholly native to their respective country, several million other Europeans, and around 2.6 - 3.0 million people of wholly non-European origin, of which 1.6 - 1.9 million in Sweden, and the remaining 1.0 - 1.1 million spread out across Norway, Denmark, Finland and Iceland. The range is given (rather than the lower number gathered from official statistics) due to the unknown exact number and ethnic breakdown of third (and fourth) generation immigrants, estimated to be anywhere from 300 to 500 thousand in Sweden, and around 200 thousand each in Norway and in Denmark. It is believed that a large proportion of third generation immigrants is admixed and partly Nordic.
The population is spread out over a land area of 3.5 million km² (Greenland accounts for 60% of the total area) but primarily concentrated in the geographical area of Denmark, Eastern Norway, and Central-Southern Sweden.
