NORDINFO: The Nordic Council for Scientific Information and Research Libraries

Abstract

The five countries known collectively as the Nordic countries or Norden are Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden. They are big in land area — over 1 1/4 million square kilometers even exluding the Arctic expansion of Greenland, but small in population: just 23 million inhabitants. The Nordic countries have developed far-reaching cooperation in practically every sphere of life on different levels within organisations, firms, associations, between local authorities and regions and at a central governmental level. This is proof of a common level of understanding that makes us speak of the Nordic area as a single entity, especially in the international context. The elements that sustain Nordic cooperation in modern times are a close cultural affinity between the people and their similarity of views as expressed in their systems of law and government, a belief in the practical and economic advantages of a suitable division of labour and in the efficient exploitation of common resources (1).