Northern Europe is famous for its terrible climate as well as its high standard of living. The bad weather was always there, but this region's enviable wealth wasn't. Due to harsh conditions prevalent in the region, the North Europeans, most notably the Vikings, very often ventured south in search of better life colonizing Britain, Irealnd and some rather remote parts of Europe such as Sicily. In the past hundred years most of the countries of Northern Europe have reared world's most egalitarian and democratic societies as well as some of our planet's richest (in 2008 the per capita GDP of Norway stood at 102,000 dollars annually!). Northern Europe's southeastern part comprising Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia is, due to historic reasons, today less economically developed, but thanks to their economies' high growth rates and stable democracies the mentioned Baltic states are expected to join Europe's wealthiest by the year 2020.
