> Norway was only doing fishing before they discovered oil in the North Sea, so all their wealth is based on oil. They still drill and export a significant amount of oil
It is misconception that Norway was poor before it found oil. Statistically Norway did as well as or better than – based on GNP per capita – most other European countries from 1830-1938; similar to Germany, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_regions_by_past_GDP_(P...