Who were the Vikings?

Vikings, even if usually associated with the Scandinavians, were not a tribe, a kingdom or ethnos. Commonly, by Vikings we understand seafarers, traders and warriors from Scandinavia who between the 9th and 11th centuries raided and traded in vast areas of Europe and beyond. They made settlements on the British Isles, Rus and France. Typically, the Viking age is dated from approximately 800 to 1066, a year when the Normans conquered England. Yet, it is worth noting that actually the Normans were descendants of those Vikings who settled in northern France, in the Dutchy of Normandy. In a wider sense, the name Vikings also mean the inhabitants of the Viking homelands during the Viking age.

The Vikings perhaps would have never got that far if it was not for their amazing craftsmanship in boat-making. The long boat was a narrow, light wooden ship designed for speed. The ship had a shallow draft which allowed effective manoeuvres on water and quick docking on land.

One of the Viking ships excavated from the Oslo Fjord area, housed in the Viking Ship Museum in Oslo. Photo by Irnan.

Thanks to their advanced navigation skills, the Vikings set foot and found settlements around the Baltic sea, mainland Europe, Russia, the British Isles, northern France, Iceland, the Shetlands, the Faeroe Islands, the Orkney Islands, as well as Newfoundland and Greenland. They also reached the Mediterranean basin and North Africa.

Voyage routes and settlements of the Vikings
Source: "Vikings-Voyages" by en:User:Bogdangiusca - Earth map by NASA; Data based on w:File:Viking Age.png (now: File:Vikingen tijd.png), which is in turn based on http://home.online.no/~anlun/tipi/vrout.jpg and other maps.. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Commons - https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Vikings-Voyages.png#/media/File:Vikings-Voyages.png