Scandinavian Peninsula

The Scandinavian Peninsula is located in Northern Europe, and roughly comprises the mainlands of Sweden, Norway and the northwestern area of Finland. It is the largest of the peninsulas of Europe, with a greater area than the Balkan, Iberian and Italian peninsulas.

The name of the peninsula is derived from the term Scandinavia, the cultural region of Denmark, Norway and Sweden. That cultural name is in turn derived from the name of Scania, the region at the southern extremity of the peninsula which was for centuries a part of Denmark, which was the ancestral home of the Danes, and is now part of Sweden.

During the Ice Ages, the sea level of the Atlantic Ocean dropped so much that the Baltic Sea, the Gulf of Bothnia and the Gulf of Finland disappeared, and the countries now surrounding them, including Germany, Poland, the other Baltic countries and Scandinavia, were directly joined by land. In the modern era, the peninsula has been secluded from much of Europe with its land connection as far north as the Arctic Circle. Locals of the region, and historic Germanic philology, view it as a separate entity not a part of Mainland Europe, which they refer to as "the Continent".