The Bizarre Geography Of Norway

By latitude alone, Norway should be frozen solid. Oslo sits level with the southern tip of Greenland; Tromsø is further north than most of Alaska. The only reason anyone lives there — and the reason the ports stay open in January — is a single warm current from the tropics. And follow that current far enough and it explains how the largest sovereign wealth fund on Earth ended up in the Arctic. 15 bizarre geography facts about Norway: a coastline with no measurable length, fjords deeper than the mountains beside them, a country still physically rising out of the sea and using that movement to date its own rock art, rock that was dragged into the mantle and came back with diamonds in it, a treaty that lets citizens of more than forty countries move to the Arctic without a visa, and a backup copy of the world's crop diversity sealed inside a frozen mountain. CHAPTERS 0:00 Norway should be frozen solid 0:56 The country that should be Siberia 2:07 A coastline with no end 3:11 The fjords are not valleys 4:13 The country is still rising out of the sea 5:07 Alta - a clock made of carvings 6:15 The ice patches giving back 6,000-year-old arrows 7:23 The mountains that are also in Scotland 8:25 Diamonds from the mantle 9:34 The Svalbard Global Seed Vault 10:41 The Svalbard Treaty - where anyone can live 11:47 Midnight sun and polar night 13:14 The Rost Reef - coral in the dark 14:26 Storegga - the slide that hit Scotland 15:29 The country that runs on falling water 16:23 The oil fund they refused to spend 17:30 How a warm current built a sovereign wealth fund WHAT'S COVERED - The North Atlantic Current and why Norwegian ports stay ice-free at Arctic latitudes - 25,000km of mainland coast, 100,000km+ with the islands, and roughly 240,000 islands and skerries - Sognefjord — 200km+ inland and over 1,300m deep - Post-glacial rebound, raised beaches, and harbours that had to follow the retreating water - Alta — 7,000-year-old carvings dated by how high up the slope they sit - Le