Norway wants to give Finland a really big mountain for its birthday

A general view of the Halti mountain, on the Finnish and Norwegian borders, in Enontekio, Finland.

(Image credit: Mikko Stig/Lehtikuva, via AP, File)

published 28 July 2016

Finland is turning 100 this year and to celebrate the occasion, Norway has confirmed it is considering giving its southern neighbor a mountain as a birthday present. "There are a few formal difficulties and I have not yet made my final decision, but we are looking into it," Norwegian Prime Minister Erna Solberg told the national broadcaster, The Guardian reports.

Although Solberg wouldn't have to move any literal mountains, she would probably have to move a couple bureaucratic ones since it would require slightly tweaking Norway's borders:

At [4,344 feet] above sea level, the highest point in Finland currently lies on a bleak mountain spur known as Hálditšohkka, part of a far larger fell known as Halti, more than 200 miles inside the Arctic Circle.Halti's summit, at [4,478 feet] high, is [a little over half a mile] away in Norway. But moving the border barely [131 feet] further up the mountainside would put Hálditšohkka's [4,367] summit in Finland — and make the country’s highest point [23 feet] higher. [The Guardian]

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Jeva Lange was the executive editor at TheWeek.com. She formerly served as The Week's deputy editor and culture critic. She is also a contributor to Screen Slate, and her writing has appeared in The New York Daily News, The Awl, Vice, and Gothamist, among other publications. Jeva lives in New York City. Follow her on Twitter.

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