Norwegian football fans
Norwegians are a North Germanic ethnic group native to Norway. Following the 872 AD Battle of Hafrsfjord, King Harald Fairhair united the Norse people of Norway under a single banner, and Norwegian Vikings traveled north and west and founded vibrant communities in the Faroe Islands, Shetland (where 25% of the population has Norwegian ancestry), Orkney, Iceland, Ireland, Scotland, Normandy, Greenland (25% of whom have Dano-Norwegian heritage) and Northern England. During the Black Death of the Middle Ages, 60% of Norway's population died, and Norway entered into a personal union with Denmark in 1397 and with Sweden after 1814. During the 17th and 18th centuries, 10% of Norway's population of 800,000 emigrated to Denmark or the Netherlands to work on trading ships, and the King of Denmark-Norway had to threaten emigrants with the death penalty in order to prevent the loss of hundreds of thousands of his subjects. From the 1850s to 1920s, the United States also experienced an influx of Norwegian immigrants, mostly in the Midwest via port cities such as Milwaukee, Chicago, and Green Bay. From 1840 to 1867, a "romantic nationalism" movement emerged in Norway which ultimately led to a successful independence referendum in 1905. By 2018, the world population of Norwegians was 10 million, including 4.5 million in Norway, 4.6 million in the United States, 463,275 in Canada, 42,000 in Shetland and Orkney, and 48,385 in Sweden. By 2012, 78% of Norwegians found religion unimportant and only 2% attended church on a weekly basis.