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A long narrow, and rugged nation, Norway lies on the western edge of Europe and covers the western and northern part of the Scandinavian peninsula. Sweeden, Finland, and Russia border Norway on the east. To the west and south, Norway is bordered by the norwegian sea, the north sea and Skagerak.

Norway spans approximately 1,089 miles form its northernmost point to its southern most point. Its coast is 1,647 miles long constisting of fjords and peninsulas which brings the ocean far inland. "At its greastest width, near latitude 60 degrees north, it measures nearly 270 miles across, while at its narrowest point, near latitude 68 degrees north it is only 3.6 miles wide from the inner end of Tysfjord to the swedish border".(Malmstrom) If the coast were straightened out, it would be 13,267 miles, approximately 1/2 the distance around the world.

The country is dominated by high terrain or mountains thanks to the natural features caused by prehistoric glaciers. "A glaicer is a large slow moving river of ice, formed from compacted layers of snow, that slowly deforms and flows in response to gravity". (Wikipedia) Norways glaicers are on a small scale compared to the continental ice sheets that currently exist in Greenland and Antarctica. Most of Norways best features were caused by glacial landscapes millions of years ago know as deglaciation. "Durning an ice retreat there is a marked difference between a glacier which terminates in the sea or in a lake, and one in which shrinkage occurs only above water level. In the first case the ice sheet terminated in a cliff, and the retreat of the margin is visible influenced by calving. In the latter no cliff is formed, the shrinkage of ice-proceeds as downwasting in situ. Crests and summits are free of ice at an early stage, ice remnants wane in the valleys". (Somme, 38)

The glaical landscape that formed Norway extends from the mountains in southern Norway across to Sweeden, where differences in the thickness of deposits and in distribution of exposed bedrock are the essential features that make up Norways landscape.

Erosion in Norway mainly occurs in autumn and spring due to rainfall and snow melting. This is also a time where farmers are tilling the land, where roots from the crops once held the dirt in place. As precipitation increases the water saturates the ground. Without the roots of the crops to soak up the water, water simply uses the surface to runoff causing soil loss.

Due to all the precipitation that occurs, the rivers generally have a maximum discharge in the spring and a minimum discharge in late winter due to all of the rain and melting snow. (Insert section information here.)

Numerous rivers in Norway have created valleys through the mountains. Melting snow descends downwards from the steep western slope to the south creating these rivers which are generally rapid due to the downward slope. Some of the river are dendritic, where the river branches out and flows into lakes while some of the river will stream into the fjords eventually flowing into the ocean. (Insert section information here.)