gium as many as 533.50 to the sq. mile. For the whole of Europe, the
proportion is calculated to • be about 98 inhabitants to the sq. mile.
As in thinly populated countries generally, the denseness of
the population in Norway is very different in the several districts.
Of the legal divisions farnt), not including those of Kristiania
and Bergen, Jarlsberg-Larvik is the most thickly populated, there
being on an average 116 inhabitants to the sq. mile. Even this,
however, it considerably below the mean for Denmark. Next
comes Smaalenene with 80.20, and Akershus with about 51. These
three divisions lie round the Kristiania Fjord, which thus forms
the most thickly populated district in the country. If Kristiania
be included in Akershus, which surrounds it on all sides, the
denseness of the letter’s population becomes about 121 per sq. mile,
or rather more than in Jarlsberg-Larvik. On the other hand,
the thinnest population is to Jbe found in Finmarken, where there
are only 1.50 persons to the sq. mile, or not quite so many as in
Iceland, where the corresponding ratio is 1.80. On thè west coast,
the Stavanger division is the most thickly populated, with a ratio
of 34.90. The two large eastern inland divisions, Hedemarken and
Kristian’s amt, on the contrary, have a population of only about
11.60 inhabitants to the sq. mile.
These ratios, however, give only an approximately correct
idea of the way in which the population ' is scattered over the
country. I t may, indeed, show that human habitations are distributed
unevenly, but it does not show how men have selected their
dwelling-places according to the geographical nature of the land,
and the natural productiveness and fitness of the various districts
to afford them a subsistence, In this respect the state of affairs
is very different in Norway from what it is in most other countries,
because those tracts of land which are at all habitable by
human beings, are not only disproportionately small, but also, on
account of the peculiar formation of the. country, more scattered
over its surface. Bather more than t of Norway s area is not
only uncultivated, but totally incapable of being cultivated; and
of the remainder about 4/s is occupied by forest, so that the
amount of cultivated land is only between 3 and 4'- per cent of
the total area of the country. For purposes of comparison it may
be mentioned that the amount of cultivated land in Denmark is
about 76 % of its 'total area, in France about 70. °/o, and in
Europe as a whole, more than 40 °/o.
POPULATION. 89
With regard to the d.ensity of the population, it will be
advisable to distinguish between Northern Norway, comprising the
Tromsa diocese, and Southern Norway, under which the five southern
dioceses may be classed, The former extends generally as
a narrow coast region through 6 degrees of latitude, with a rugged
shore, dotted with innumerable islands, and is generally only about
a fourth part so thickly populated as the remainder of the country.
The greater part of th e . population has gathered along the coast
and upon the islands, of which a few in the Lofoten group, which
are the. scene of the great annual cod-fisheries, are comparatively
thickly populated. A few coast districts, too, on Helgeland, have a
relatively large population. On the other hand, throughout Northern
Norway, the inland districts are for the most part uninhabited.
South of the Trondhjem Fjord, the country increases considerably
in width, the__coast-line sloping very much westwards as
far as Stad, south of which, the country between about 629 and
59° maintains the same width, and then tapers off to the south.
Almost the whole of this space is filled by mountains, which
descend precipitously to the sea towards the west, and afford only
scant room for building along the coast, on the islands fringing
it, and along the fjords. Towards the south and south-east thé
incline is more gentle, and the mountain masses are broken up
by several narrow, but long valleys, traversed by rivers, and affording
a narrow space for the building of habitations. In the southeastern
part of the country, about the Kristiania Fjord, the country
has a flatter character, and the rivers coming from the N and
NW,fiform lakes of varying sizes in their course, in the vicinity
of which the land is cultivated and to some extent quite thickly,
populated. South of Trondhjem, Norway is represented on a
population-chart as a large blank surface with a more or less
narrow margin of inhabited country along the coast, interrupted
in several places by stretches of altogether uninhabited country;
and South of the Dovre Mountains, running chiefly in a south-
south-easterly direction, and north of those mountains, running in
a northerly direction, are inhabited clefts in the mountain masses.
The boundaries between the inland thinly-peopled-district, and the
outer, better populated coast region, cannot of course be drawn
with perfect precision, but are yet generally quite distinct.
The districts on the east and south sides of the Trondhjem
Fjord are among the most thickly populated in the country. Here