Sweden is a country in Northern Europe on the Scandinavian Peninsula. It borders Norway to the west; Finland to the northeast; and the Baltic Sea and Gulf of Bothnia to the south and east. At , Sweden is the largest country in Northern Europe, the fifth largest in Europe, and the 55th largest country in the world. Sweden has a long coastline on its east, and the Scandinavian mountain chain (Scanderna) on its western border, separating it from Norway. It has maritime borders with Denmark, Germany, Poland, Russia, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, and it is also linked to Denmark (southwest) by the Öresund bridge. It has an Exclusive Economic Zone of . Terrain Much of Sweden is heavily forested, with 69% of the country being forest and woodland, while farmland constitutes only 8% of land use. Sweden consists of 39,960 km2 of water area, constituting around 95,700 lakes. The lakes are sometimes used for water power plants, especially the large northern rivers and lakes. Most of northern and western central Sweden consists of vast tracts of hilly and mountainous land called the Norrland terrain. From the south the transition to the Norrland terrain is not only seen in the relief but also in the wide and contiguous boreal forests that extend north of it with till and peat being the overwhelmingly most common soil types. South of the Norrland terrain lies the Central Swedish lowland which forms a broad east-west trending belt from Gothenburg to Stockholm. This is the traditional heartland of Sweden due to its large population and agricultural resources. The region forms a belt of fertile soils suitable for agriculture that interrupts the forested and till-coated lands to the north and south. Before the expansion of agriculture, these fertile soils were covered by a broad-leaved tree forest where maples, oaks, ashes, small-leaved lime and common hazel grew. The Central Swedish lowland does however also contain soils of poor quality, particularly in hills where Scots pine and Norway spruce grow on top of thin till soils. Agriculture aside, the region benefits also from the proximity of hydropower, forest and bergslagen's mineral resources. Sweden's four largest lakes, Vänern, Vättern, Mälaren and Hjälmaren, lie within the lowlands. To the south of the Central Swedish lowland lies the South Swedish highlands which except for a lack of deep valleys is similar to the Norrland terrain found further north in Sweden. The highest