The Vikings (from Old Norse víkingr) are seafaring north Germanic people who raid, trade, explore, and settle in wide areas of Europe, Asia, and the North Atlantic islands from the late 8th to the mid-11th centuries.

The Vikings employ wooden longships with wide, shallow-draft hulls, allowing navigation in rough seas or in shallow river waters.

The ships can be landed on beaches, and their light weight enables them to be hauled over portages.

These versatile ships allow the Vikings to travel as far east as Constantinople and the Volga River in Russia, as far west as Iceland, Greenland, and Newfoundland, and as far south as Nekor.

This period of Viking expansion, known as the Viking Age, constitutes an important element of the medieval history of Scandinavia, Great Britain, Ireland, Russia, and the rest of Europe.Popular conceptions of the Vikings often differ from the complex picture that emerges from archaeology and written sources.

A romanticized picture of Vikings as noble savages began to take root in the 18th century, and this developed and became widely propagated during the 19th-century Viking revival.

The received views of the Vikings as violent brutes or intrepid adventurers owe much to the modern Viking myth that had taken shape by the early 20th century.

Current popular representations are typically highly clichéd, presenting the Vikings as familiar caricatures.