Whois & Analysis for visitnorway.com

The midnight sun is a natural phenomenon that occurs in the summer months in places north of the Arctic Circle or south of the Antarctic Circle, when the sun remains visible at the local midnight.

Around the summer solstice (approximately 21 June in the Northern Hemisphere and 22 December in the Southern Hemisphere) the sun is visible for the full 24 hours, given fair weather.

The number of days per year with potential midnight sun increases the farther towards either pole one goes.

Although approximately defined by the polar circles, in practice the midnight sun can be seen as much as 55 miles (90 km) outside the polar circle, as described below, and the exact latitudes of the farthest reaches of midnight sun depend on topography and vary slightly year-to-year.

Norway (Norwegian: (Bokmål) or (Nynorsk)), officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a sovereign and unitary monarchy whose territory comprises the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula plus the island Jan Mayen and the archipelago of Svalbard.

The Antarctic Peter I Island and the sub-Antarctic Bouvet Island are dependent territories and thus not considered part of the Kingdom.

Norway also lays claim to a section of Antarctica known as Queen Maud Land.

Until 1814, the kingdom included the Faroe Islands (since 1035), Greenland (1261), and Iceland (1262).

It also included Isle of Man until 1266, Shetland and Orkney until 1468, and the following provinces, now in Sweden: Jämtland, Härjedalen and Bohuslän.

An aurora, sometimes referred to as a polar lights or northern lights, is a natural light display in the sky, predominantly seen in the high latitude (Arctic and Antarctic) regions.

Auroras are produced when the magnetosphere is sufficiently disturbed by the solar wind that the trajectories of charged particles in both solar wind and magnetospheric plasma, mainly in the form of electrons and protons, precipitate them into the upper atmosphere (thermosphere/exosphere), where their energy is lost.

The resulting ionization and excitation of atmospheric constituents emits light of varying colour and complexity.

The form of the aurora, occurring within bands around both polar regions, is also dependent on the amount of acceleration imparted to the precipitating particles.

Tourism is travel for pleasure or business; also the theory and practice of touring, the business of attracting, accommodating, and entertaining tourists, and the business of operating tours.

Tourism may be international, or within the traveller's country.

The World Tourism Organization defines tourism more generally, in terms which go "beyond the common perception of tourism as being limited to holiday activity only", as people "traveling to and staying in places outside their usual environment for not more than one consecutive year for leisure, business and other purposes".

Geologically, a fjord or fiord (or) is a long, narrow inlet with steep sides or cliffs, created by glacial erosion.

There are many fjords on the coasts of Alaska, British Columbia, Chile, Greenland, Iceland, the Kerguelen Islands, New Zealand, Norway, Novaya Zemlya, Labrador, Nunavut, Newfoundland, Scotland, and Washington state.

Norway's coastline is estimated at with 1,190 fjords, but only when fjords are excluded.