March 19, 2024

Comparison of Iceland With Other Nordic Countries

For their part, Icelanders appreciate putting themselves in the context of other countries, and for my part, I find statistics about Icelanders in relation to the rest of the globe very interesting.

Iceland is a tiny Nordic country with fewer than 400,000 inhabitants. Because our country does extraordinarily well in that comparison, this fact has long been a source of endless comparisons with other countries based on population. In many ways, Iceland and the other Nordic countries are closely linked. For hundreds of years, Iceland was a Danish colony until our independence in 1944. As a result, it is only fitting to begin this comparison by looking at which Nordic language is most frequently searched for on Google.

This graph shows that Sweden has the highest rating, followed by our beloved Iceland and Norway, which comes in third. It should be mentioned that, with a population of 10.2 million, Sweden is the most populous Nordic nation, followed by Denmark with 5.8 million and Norway and Finland with about 5.5 million each. Last, with 354 thousand, is Iceland. According to Wikipedia, these are the predicted figures for 2021.

It is therefore clear that, per capita, Iceland is by far the most popular search term of the Nordic countries on Google. For me, as an Icelander, this is a favorable result.

I sincerely hope that you, dear reader, do not interpret my statements as indicating that I value Iceland more highly than other Nordic nations, because that is untrue. With the exception of Finland, I have traveled to all of the northern countries and have enjoyed doing so. Let’s just say that this is like a game where Iceland is in second place without comparison in terms of population, and that it is a pleasant outcome that Iceland is so frequently searched for on Google.

It is with great pleasure that the featured photo at the top of this post was taken in Copenhagen, which is always a pleasure to visit.