Scandinavia

=== Viking Age ===
{{see also|Viking Age|Vikings}}
The Viking age in Scandinavia lasted from approximately 793–1066 AD and saw Scandinavians participate in large scale raiding, colonization, conquest and trading throughout Europe and beyond.<ref name="Mawer">{{cite book |last=Mawer |first=Allen |author-link=Allen Mawer |year=1913 |title=The Vikings |url=https://archive.org/details/vikings00mawe |publisher=[[Cambridge University Press]] |page=[https://archive.org/details/vikings00mawe/page/1 1] |quote=The term 'Viking' is derived from the Old Norse {{lang|non|vík}}, a bay, and means 'one who haunts a bay, creek or fjord'. In the 9th and 10th centuries it came to be used more especially of those warriors who left their homes in Scandinavia and made raids on the chief European countries. This is the narrow, and technically the only correct use of the term 'Viking,' but in such expressions as 'Viking civilisation,' 'the Viking Age,' 'the Viking movement,' 'Viking influence,' the word has come to have a wider significance and is used as a concise and convenient term for describing the whole of the civilisation, activity and influence of the Scandinavian peoples, at a particular period in their history…}}</ref><ref name="Sawyer_1995">{{cite book |last=Sawyer |first=Peter H. |author-link=Peter Sawyer (historian) |year=1995 |title=Scandinavians and the English in the Viking Age |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=owygAAAAMAAJ |publisher=[[University of Cambridge]] |page=3 |isbn=095173394X |quote=The Viking period is, therefore, best defined as the period when Scandinavians played a large role in the British Isles and western Europe as raiders and conquerors. It is also the period in which Scandinavians settled in many of the areas they conquered, and in the Atlantic islands... |access-date=23 April 2023 |archive-date=23 April 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230423132203/https://books.google.com/books?id=owygAAAAMAAJ |url-status=live }}</ref> The period saw a big expansion of Scandinavian-conquered territory and of exploration. Utilizing their advanced [[longship]]s, they reached as far as North America, being the first Europeans to do so.<ref>{{Cite web|agency=Reuters|date=20 October 2021|title=Solar storm confirms Vikings settled in North America exactly 1,000 years ago|url=https://www.theguardian.com/science/2021/oct/20/vikings-settled-north-america-1000-years-ago-solar-storm|access-date=21 October 2021|website=The Guardian|language=en|archive-date=7 November 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211107012357/https://www.theguardian.com/science/2021/oct/20/vikings-settled-north-america-1000-years-ago-solar-storm|url-status=live}}</ref> During this time Scandinavians were drawn to wealthy towns, monasteries and petty kingdoms overseas in places such as the British Isles, Ireland, the Baltic coast and Normandy, all of which made profitable targets for raids. Scandinavians, primarily from modern day Sweden, known as [[Varangians]] also ventured east into what is now Russia raiding along river trade routes. During this period unification also took place between different Scandinavian kingdoms culminating in the peak of the [[North Sea Empire]] which included large parts of Scandinavia and Great Britain.<ref name="annals R.20">"Franques Royal Annals" cited in Sawyer, Peter (2001) ''The Oxford Illustrated History of the Vikings''. {{ISBN|0-19-285434-8}}. p. 20</ref>

This expansion and conquest led to the formation of several kingdoms, earldoms and settlements throughout Europe such as the [[Kingdom of the Isles]], [[Earldom of Orkney]], [[Scandinavian York]], [[Danelaw]], [[Kingdom of Dublin]], the [[Duchy of Normandy]] and the [[Kievan Rus']]. The Faroe Islands, Iceland and Greenland were also settled by the Scandinavians during this time. The [[Normans]], [[Rus' people]], [[Faroe Islanders]], [[Icelanders]] and [[Norse–Gaels|Norse-Gaels]] all emerged from these Scandinavian expansions.