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Faroe Islands
A self-governing North Atlantic nation inside the Danish Realm, and outside the EU
Halfway between Scotland and Iceland, eighteen steep green islands hold a nation of about 55,000 people with its own language, parliament, flag, and football team, yet no seat at the United Nations. The Faroe Islands are a self-governing country within the Kingdom of Denmark, an arrangement the Danes call the Rigsfællesskab, or Realm. Copenhagen still holds defense, citizenship, and the monarchy, while the Faroese run nearly everything else, from fisheries to schools. When Denmark joined the European Community in 1973, the islands stayed out, mainly to keep control of the fishing grounds that remain the core of their economy. Whether to go further and become fully independent is a live and recurring question in Faroese politics.
The archipelago covers about 1,400 square kilometers of basalt, stacked in lava layers and cut into sea cliffs, fjords, and treeless grassy slopes. Slættaratindur, at 880 meters, is the highest point. The Gulf Stream keeps winters mild for the latitude, but wind, fog, and rain arrive almost daily. A network of road tunnels, including undersea tunnels opened in 2020 and 2023, now links most inhabited islands, and the capital, Tórshavn, holds about a quarter of the population. Fish and farmed salmon make up the overwhelming share of exports, and tourism has grown quickly. The Løgting, one of the oldest parliaments in the world, elects the government, and a new coalition took office after the March 2026 election.
Norse settlers arrived around the ninth century, and the islands passed with Norway into union with Denmark, remaining Danish when Norway was transferred to Sweden in 1814. During World War II British forces occupied the islands while Denmark was under German control, and in 1946 a narrow independence referendum was annulled by Copenhagen. The Home Rule Act of 1948 created the present self-government, expanded by a 2005 law that lets the Faroese take over almost any field except a handful reserved to the Danish state. Denmark recognizes the Faroese as a people with a right to self-determination, and parties favoring independence regularly win seats. The islands negotiate their own trade and fishing deals, including with Russia, which has at times put them at odds with EU and Danish policy.