Finnmark

Finnmark (Norwegian: [ˈfɪ̀nːmɑrk] ^ⓘ; Northern Sami: Finnmárku [ˈfinːˌmaːrːhkuː]; Kven: Finmarkku; Finnish: Finnmarkin lääni; Russian: Финнмарк) is a county in northern Norway. By land, it borders Troms county to the west, Finland's Lapland region to the south, and Russia's Murmansk Oblast to the east, and by water, the Norwegian Sea (Atlantic Ocean) to the northwest, and the Barents Sea (Arctic Ocean) to the north and northeast.

The county was formerly known as Finmarkens amt or Vardøhus amt. Since 2002, it has had two official names: Finnmark (Norwegian) and Finnmárku (Northern Sami). It is part of the Sápmi region, which spans four countries, as well as the Barents Region, and is Norway's second-largest and least populous county.

Situated at the northernmost part of continental Europe, where the Norwegian coastline swings eastward, Finnmark is an area "where East meets West" in culture as well as in nature and geography. Vardø Municipality, Norway's easternmost municipality, is farther east than Saint Petersburg and Istanbul.

On 1 January 2020, Finnmark merged with the neighbouring county of Troms to form Troms og Finnmark county. On 1 January 2024, the counties of Finnmark and Troms were restored after parliament decided on 15 June 2022 to separate them.

The name Finnmark is derived from Old Norse Finnmǫrk: The first element is finn(ar), the Norse name for the Sámi people, and the last element is mǫrk, which means "woodland" or "borderland". In Norse times the name referred to the land of the Sámi people, or any place where Sámi people lived.

The coat of arms is black with a gold-colored castle tower—its blazon reads, "Sable, a single-towered castle Or". The design is from 1967 and shows the old Vardøhus Fortress, historically on the eastern border with Russia.

The Sami are the indigenous people of Finnmark, but Norwegians have lived for hundreds of years on the islands' outer parts, where they made up the majority. The Sami people still constitute the majority in Finnmark's interior parts, while the fjord areas have been ethnically mixed for a long time. This essentially holds true today.

The Sami were for years victims of the Norwegianization policy, which in essence was an attempt by the government to make them "true Norwegians" and forget about their Sami way of life and religion, which was seen as inferior. As a result, the Sami living at the coast and in the fjords gradually lost much of their culture and often felt ashamed by their Sami inheritance. The Sami in the interior managed to preserve more of their culture. In the 1970s, instruction of the Sami language started in schools, and a new sense of consciousness started to grow among the Sami; today most are proud of their background and culture.