Solveig has reminded me that if you want to buy Norwegian land you need to be prepared to live on it, and in relation to farming land, you probably have to demonstrate that you have or will acquire farming capability. If the farm is anything more than a smallholding you will have to farm it yourself.

This is because good farmland is in very short supply in Norway, and until very recently the concept of an absentee landlord in Norway simply did not exist. Even today it only tends to apply to the relatively few Yuppie flats which have become the subject of Norway's own mini sub-prime problem.

These restrictions on absentee ownership generally and by extension, on foreign ownership in particular, are one of the key reasons why Norway twice rejected EU membership, which would, I undrestand, have obliged Norway to lift them.

One of the effects has been that Norway has not seen its far-flung populations deserting rural areas for the cities.

It also suited NATO to see the far North of Norway suitably populated against the Red Threat.....

"The future is already here -- it's just not very evenly distributed" William Gibson