Norwegian people

This article deals with the Norwegians as an ethnic group. For information on other uses please see the disambiguation article Norwegian.

Norwegians in Norway

There are nearly 4.6 million ethnic Norwegians living in Norway today. The Norwegians are a Scandinavian ethnic group, and the primary descendants of the Norse (along with the Swedes, Danes, Icelanders and Faroese). See also History of Norway and Demographics of Norway.

For the global genetic make-up of the Norwegian people and other peoples, see also: and [https://www5.nationalgeographic.com/genographic/atlas.html

Norwegians in the Rest of the World

Norwegian citizens abroad

See also: List of Norwegian citizens abroad

As with many of the people from smaller European countries, Norwegians are spread throughout the world. There are more than 100,000 Norwegian citizens are living abroad permanently, mostly in the USA, the UK and in the other Scandinavian countries.

United States of America

See the complete article on Norwegian-Americans

Many Norwegians emigrated to the USA between the 1850s and the 1920s. Today, the descendants of these people are known as Norwegian-Americans. According to the 2000 US Census, 3 million Americans consider Norwegian to be their sole or primary ancestry. It is estimated that as many as 1.5 million more are of partial Norwegian ancestry.

Norwegian-Americans represent between 2 and 3% of the white non-Hispanic population in the US. They mostly live in the Upper Midwest.

Canada

During the same time period as Norwegian immigration to the USA, some Norwegians also immigrated to Canada. According to the 2001 Canadian census, 360,000 Canadians reported Norwegian ancestry. Approximately 47,000 of these consider Norwegian to be their sole or primary ancestry, and another 316,000 are of partial Norwegian ancestry.

Norwegians represent 1.5% of the total white Canadian population.

Other terms used

The Norwegians are and have been referred to by other terms as well. Of them are:

Nordmenn; the local Norwegian term
Northmen; old term used by other European peoples to denote the peoples originating in the nortern regions of Europe
Norse; Viking age peoples of Nordic origin.
Vikings;used in Norway to denote people who whent raiding during the Viking age. Used in a similar way by other peoples but can also mean Scandinavians in general.
Norsemen; similar to Norse.

External links

Source for Norwegian-American population estimate: ^*
Source for Canadian population data: ^*

Ethnic groups in Europe | Germanic peoples

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