As short-video platforms have gradually become an important media field through which the public perceives foreign spaces, travel short videos are no longer merely records of travel experience. They have become an important textual form that participates in constructing urban and regional imaginaries. Taking Nordic travel short videos on Douyin as its research object, and combining content analysis with case study, this paper examines how short videos construct Northern Europe as an exotic lifestyle space that can be watched, desired, and shared. The study finds, first, that in terms of narrative type, Nordic travel short videos are dominated by landscape/immersive expression, while guide-oriented explanation and emotional expression occupy auxiliary positions; Northern Europe is first shaped as a “distant place to be viewed.” Second, in terms of visual presentation, natural landscapes, low-density urban space, compositions with ample negative space, and alternating cool and warm tones jointly constitute a regional aesthetic template for Northern Europe. Third, in terms of meaning frames, “natural pure land” is the most important mode of construction, while “lifestyle template” and “spiritual homeland” are further extensions on this basis. More broadly, the formation of the Nordic imaginary is not the result of any single text, but the product of the combined effects of narrative scripting, visual templating, emotional projection, and interactive reproduction. This paper argues that Northern Europe on Douyin does not primarily exist as an explained tourist destination; rather, it is gradually organized as a mediatized exotic imaginary based on natural landscapes, extended through lifestyle, and centered on emotional projection. The paper helps illuminate, from the perspective of the short-video context, the generative mechanism of exotic urban imaginaries and the logic of their platformized circulation.

Keywords: short videos; travel narrative; urban imaginary; exotic imaginary; Northern Europe; Douyin.