Faroe Islands independent country, but they do have political relations directly with other countries through agreement with Denmark. The Faroe Islands are a member of some international organisations as though they were an independent country. The Faroe Islands are a member of several international sports federations like UEFA, FIFA in football and FINA in swimming and EHF in handball and have their own national teams. The Faroe Islands have their own telephone country code, Internet country code top-level domain, banking code and postal country code. The Faroe Islands make their own agreements with other countries regarding trade and commerce. When the EU
Faroe Islands "sýslur" (similar to the British "shire": Norðoyar, Eysturoy, Streymoy, Vágar, Sandoy, and Suðuroy). Although today "sýsla" technically means "police district", the term is still commonly used to indicate a geographical region. In earlier times, each "sýsla" had its own assembly, the so-called "várting" ("spring assembly"). The Faroe Islands have been under Norwegian/Danish control since 1388. The 1814 Treaty of Kiel terminated the Danish-Norwegian union, and Norway came under the rule of the King of Sweden, while the Faroe Islands, Iceland, and Greenland remained Danish possessions. From ancient times the Faroe Islands had a parliament ("Løgting"), which was abolished in 1816,