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Norse expansion

migration and settlement · 750 AD–1021 AD

In the Viking Age, people from Norway, Denmark and Sweden raided, traded and settled far beyond Scandinavia: west across the North Atlantic as far as Newfoundland, into the British Isles and Normandy, and east along the rivers of what became Russia and Ukraine. Many dates come from sagas and chronicles written down centuries later; the dated wood at L'Anse aux Meadows and the tree rings at Staraya Ladoga are among the few fixed points.

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At a glance

Who moved
Norse seafarers and settlers from Scandinavia
Reached
L'Anse aux Meadows, Dublin, York, Rouen, Kyiv

Names

NameIn useLanguage
Norse expansionunknown period—
Viking expansionunknown periodcommon

Recorded boundaries

PeriodControlConfidenceEvidenceNotes
750 AD–752 AD—medium confidenceno observation date recordedSetting out from Uppland.
753 AD–799 AD—high confidenceno observation date recordedReached Staraya Ladoga (East to the Rus'). Tree rings date the first buildings to 753.
800 AD–819 AD—medium confidenceno observation date recordedSetting out from Western Norway. Reached Shetland (Across the North Atlantic).
820 AD–824 AD—medium confidenceno observation date recordedReached Orkney (Into the British Isles).
825 AD–840 AD—medium confidenceno observation date recordedReached Faroe Islands (Across the North Atlantic). The Irish monk Dicuil wrote in 825 that Northmen had driven the hermits from islands north of Britain.
841 AD–861 AD—high confidenceno observation date recordedReached Dublin (Into the British Isles). The Annals of Ulster record a Norse longphort, a fortified ship camp, at Dublin in 841.
862 AD–864 AD—low confidenceno observation date recordedReached Novgorod (East to the Rus'). The Primary Chronicle has the Varangian Rurik invited to rule here in 862, a date written down two centuries later.
865 AD—medium confidenceno observation date recordedSetting out from Jutland. Reached East Anglia (The Danelaw). The Great Heathen Army landed in East Anglia.
866 AD–873 AD—high confidenceno observation date recordedReached York (The Danelaw). Taken by the Great Army; Danish settlers shared out Northumbria in 876.
874 AD–881 AD—high confidenceno observation date recordedReached Iceland (Across the North Atlantic). Settlement traditionally begins with Ingólfr Arnarson at Reykjavík; a volcanic ash layer of about 871 lies just beneath the first farms.
882 AD–884 AD—medium confidenceno observation date recordedReached Kyiv (East to the Rus'). Oleg took Kyiv, according to the Primary Chronicle, and made it the centre of the Rus'.
885 AD–910 AD—medium confidenceno observation date recordedSetting out from Jutland.
911 AD–984 AD—high confidenceno observation date recordedReached Rouen (Normandy). Charles the Simple granted Rouen and the lower Seine to Rollo, founding Normandy.
985 AD–1020 AD—high confidenceno observation date recordedReached Eastern Settlement, Greenland (Across the North Atlantic). Erik the Red led some fourteen ships of settlers from Iceland.
1021 AD—high confidenceno observation date recordedReached L'Anse aux Meadows (Across the North Atlantic). Wood cut with metal tools here was felled in 1021, dated from a solar storm recorded in its tree rings. The camp was abandoned within a few years.

Each row is a snapshot the source recorded, not a continuous history. The period between two observations is an inference this atlas shows rather than hides.

Sources

Elsewhere