page_title: Scandza
section_title: Geographical description through history
hierarchical_section_title: Scandza / Geographical description through history
context_page_description: The Gothic-Byzantine historian Jordanes described Scandza as a "great island" in his work Getica, written in Constantinople around 551 AD. This island was located in the Arctic regions of the sea that surrounded the world.
  He discussed the area in the opening of his Getica, which gives a story of the history of the Goths, beginning in Scandza, after which they migrated to Gothiscandza, near the mouth of the Vistula river.
  It is believed that Jordanes was describing Scandinavia. Prominent Swedish archaeologist, Göran Burenhult, regards Jordanes' account as a unique glimpse into the tribes of Scandinavia in the 6th century.
  Jordanes was a Roman citizen living in Constantinople but he described himself as being of Gothic descent.
context_section_description: Early Greek and Roman geographers used the name Scandia for various uncharted islands in Northern Europe. The name originated in Greek sources, which used it for a long time for different islands in the Mediterranean region. In the Iliad the name denotes an ancient city in Kythira, Greece. 
  The first attested written use of the name for a Northern European island appears in the work of Roman Pliny the Elder, Naturalis Historia of c. AD 77. Pliny described "Scandia" as an island located north of Britannia. This island does not appear to be the same as the island Pliny calls "Scatinavia", located near Cimbri. In Claudius Ptolemy's Geographia, written in the 2nd century AD, Scandia is described as the most easterly of the Scandiae islands, a group of islands located east of the Cimbrian peninsula. This is the region where Pliny had located "Scatinavia".
  When Scandinavian scholars became familiar with the Roman records in the Middle Ages, Scandiae was used as an alternative Latin name for Terra Scania. The early 13th-century Latin paraphrase of the Scanian Law bears the title Lex Scandiae provincialis.
  Jordanes referred to Ptolemy's description of Scandia "as a great island shaped like a juniper leaf" (i.e. long and not round) "having bulging sides and which tapered down in the south at a long end".  He also referred to Pomponius Mela's description of Codanonia (called Scatinavia by Pliny the Elder) which was located in the Codanian Gulf (probably Kattegat). "This island was in front of the Vistula and that there was a great lake" "from which sprang the river Vagus". "On the western and northern side it was surrounded by an enormous sea", "but in the east there was a land bridge which cut off the sea in the east forming the German Sea". "There were also many small islands" (the Swedish and Finnish archipelagos) "where wolves could pass when the sea was frozen. In winter the country was not only cruel to people but also to wild beasts. Due to the extreme cold there were no swarms of honey-making bees."
  In the 16th century, Olaus Magnus, a Swedish cartographer familiar with Pliny's writings, created a map where he placed the name "Scandia" in the middle of today's Sweden. In Olaus Magnus' map, the name denotes an area including "Svecia" (Svealand), "Gothia" and "Norvegia" (Norway), where he places various tribes described by the ancient geographers.
  Although mainly a historical name, Scandia still occasionally continues in use today as a Latin name for Scandinavia. The Scandinavian Bishops Conference, an Episcopal Conference organized by the Catholic Church since 1923, is called Conferentia Episcopalis Scandiae.
caption: Map of the Scandiae islands by Nicolaus Germanus for a 1467 publication of Cosmographia Claudii Ptolomaei Alexandrini
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