OSLO (AFP) - Key facts about the Scandinavian nation of Norway, which holds parliamentary elections on Monday:

GEOGRAPHY: Mainland Norway runs along the entire western coastline of the Scandinavian peninsula; at 323,758 square kilometers or 125,003 square miles it is slightly larger than Italy and slightly smaller than Japan.

Norway's territory is extremely rugged, and the coastline indented by spectacular fjords, or inlets, which are a major tourist attraction.

The country has land borders with Sweden, Finland, and Russia; it also includes the island territory of Svalbard above the Arctic Circle.

POPULATION: 4.7 million, of whom 40,000 are Sami, or Laplanders.

RELIGION: Norwegian Lutheran Church, 86 percent.

CAPITAL: Oslo: 575,475 inhabitants.

LANGUAGE: Norwegian.

HISTORY: Norway and parts of Sweden were the original homeland of the people known as Vikings, who in the Middle Ages raided and settled in several other parts of Europe, and are also believed to have sailed to North America.

In early modern times Norway was ruled first by Denmark and then by Sweden, but it achieved independence in 1905.

During World War II the country was occupied by the Germans; since the end of that conflict it has achieved great wealth, mainly thanks to oil reserves discovered in the North Sea in the 1960s.

Norway was one of the first countries anywhere to grant voting rights to women, in 1913.

Its voters have refused on two occasions, in 1972 and 1994, to join the EU.

POLITICAL STRUCTURE: Constitutional monarchy under King Harald V, who has mainly ceremonial duties.

Members of the 169-seat Storting, or parliament, are elected by proportional representation for four-year terms.

At the last elections, in September 2005, the Labour Party (DNA) won 61 seats, and its leader Jens Stoltenberg has been prime minister since then.

ECONOMY: Thanks to its oil wealth Norway is one of the richest countries in the world, with a per capita gross national income of 87,070 US dollars in 2008 (source: World Bank).

In addition to oil and gas, of which it is the world's fifth and third biggest exporter respectively, it also has major fishing, forestry, hydro-electric and minerals sectors.

In recent years Norway has along with Iceland and Canada regularly figured among the top three states in the worldwide Human Development Index drawn up by the United Nations.

ARMED FORCES: 19,100 troops (International Institute of Strategic Studies, 2009). Norway is a member of NATO and currently has 500 soldiers in Afghanistan.

The country is a member of the Council of Europe and the European Economic Area (EEA). Although it is not an EU member it is a signatory of the EU's Schengen "open borders" agreement.