Counties of Norway

Counties of Norway Norges fylker  (Bokmål) Noregs fylke  (Nynorsk)
Category	Unitary unit
Location	Norway
Government	County municipality
Subdivisions	Municipalities

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Norway is divided into 11 administrative regions, called counties (singular Norwegian: fylke, plural Bokmål: fylker; Nynorsk: fylke from Old Norse: fylki from the word "folk", Northern Sami: fylka, Southern Sami: fylhke, Lule Sami: fylkka, Kven: fylkki) which until 1918 were known as amter. The counties form the first-level administrative divisions of Norway and are further subdivided into 356 municipalities (kommune, pl. kommuner / kommunar). The island territories of Svalbard and Jan Mayen are outside the county division and ruled directly at the national level. The capital Oslo is considered both a county and a municipality.

In 2017 the government decided to abolish some of the counties and to merge them with other counties to form larger ones, reducing the number of counties from 19 to 11, which was implemented on 1 January 2020.^[1] However, two of the newly merged counties (Viken^[2][3] and Troms og Finnmark^[4]) have seen popular opposition before, during, or after the mergers, and have stated their desire to split back up, with one (Vestfold og Telemark) seeing opposition in the area of one of the two former counties constituting it.^[5] Some opposition parties have stated their willingness to undo any of the aforementioned mergers if they win a majority in the next general election if the residents of the area so choose.^[6]

List of counties[]

Below is a list of the Norwegian counties, with their current administrative centres. Note that the counties are administered both by appointees of the national government and to a lesser extent by their own elected bodies. The county numbers are from the official numbering system ISO 3166-2:NO, which originally was set up to follow the coastline from the Swedish border in the southeast to the Russian border in the northeast, but with the numbering has changed with county mergers.

The island territories of Svalbard and Jan Mayen lie outside of the county system of Norway. Svalbard is administered by the Governor of Svalbard, and Jan Mayen is administered by the County Governor of Nordland (but not part of Nordland).

ISO-code	County	Adminis­trative centre(s)	Most populous munici­pality	Governor	Mayor	Area (km2)	Pop.	Official language form
03	Oslo	City of Oslo		Valgerd Svarstad Haugland	Marianne Borgen (SV)	454.12	693,494	Neutral
11	Rogaland	Stavanger			(Ap)	9,377.10	479,892	Neutral
15	Møre og Romsdal	Molde	Ålesund	Rigmor Brøste	(Ap)	14,355.62	265,238	Nynorsk
18	Nordland	Bodø		Tom Cato Karlsen	Kari Anne Bøkestad Andreassen (Sp)	38,154.62	241,235	Neutral
30	Viken	Oslo, Drammen, Sarpsborg	Bærum	Valgerd Svarstad Haugland	Roger Ryberg (Ap)	24,592.59	1,241,165	Neutral
34	Innlandet	Hamar	Ringsaker	Knut Storberget	Even Aleksander Hagen (Ap)	52,072.44	371,385	Neutral
38	Vestfold og Telemark	Skien	Sandefjord	Per Arne Olsen	Terje Riis-Johansen (Sp)	17,465.92	419,396	Neutral
42	Agder	Kristiansand		Stein A. Ytterdahl	Arne Thomassen (H)	16,434.12	307,231	Neutral
46	Vestland	Bergen		Lars Sponheim	(Sp)	33,870.99	636,531	Nynorsk
50	Trøndelag Trööndelage	Steinkjer	Trondheim	Frank Jenssen	Tore O. Sandvik (Ap)	42,201.59	468,702	Neutral
54	Troms og Finnmark Romsa ja Finnmárku Tromssa ja Finmarkku	Tromsø		Elisabeth Aspaker	Ivar B. Prestbakmo (Sp)	74,829.68	243,311	Neutral

Responsibilities and significance[]

Every county has two main organisations, both with underlying organisations.

1. The county municipality (no: Fylkeskommune) has a county council (Norwegian: Fylkesting), whose members are elected by the inhabitants. The county municipality is responsible mainly for some medium level schools, public transport organisation, regional road planning, culture and some more areas.
2. The county governor (no: Fylkesmannen) is an authority directly overseen by the Norwegian government. It surveills the municipalities and receives complaints from people over their actions. It also controls areas where the government needs local direct ruling outside the municipalities.

History[]

Fylke (1st period)[]

From the consolidation to a single kingdom, Norway was divided into a number of geographic regions that had its own legislative assembly or Thing, such as Gulating (Western Norway) and Frostating (Trøndelag). The second-order subdivision of these regions was into fylker, such as Egdafylke and Hordafylke. In 1914, the historical term fylke was brought into use again to replace the term amt introduced during the union with Denmark. Current day counties (fylker) often, but not necessarily, correspond to the historical areas.

Fylke in the 10th-13th centuries[]

Counties (folkland) under the Borgarting, located in Viken with the seat at Sarpsborg:^[7]

Counties (first three fylke, last two bilandskap) under the Eidsivating, located in Oplandene with the seat at Eidsvoll:^[7]

• Raumafylke (Glåmdalen, Romerike, Solør)
• Heinafylke (Gjøvik, Hedmark)
• Hadafylke (Hadeland, Land, Toten)
• Gudbrandsdal
• Østerdal

Counties under the Gulating, located in Vestlandet with the seat at Gulen:^[8]

Counties under the Frostating, located in Trøndelag with the seat at Frosta:

Counties not attached to a thing:

Finnmark (including northern Troms), the Faroe Islands, the Orkney Islands, Shetland, the Hebrides, Isle of Man, Iceland and Greenland were Norwegian skattland ("taxed countries"), and did not belong to any known counties or assembly areas.

Syssel[]

Syssel in 1300[]

From the end of the 12th century, Norway was divided into several syssel. The head of the various syssel was the syslemann, who represented the king locally. The following shows a reconstruction of the different syssel in Norway c. 1300, including sub-syssel where these seem established.^[9]

Len[]

From 1308, the term len (plural len) in Norway signified an administrative region roughly equivalent to today's counties. The historic len was an important administrative entity during the period of Dano-Norwegian unification after their amalgamation as one state, which lasted for the period 1536^[10]–1814.

At the beginning of the 16th century the political divisions were variable, but consistently included four main len and approximately 30 smaller sub-regions with varying connections to a main len. Up to 1660 the four principal len were headquartered at the major fortresses Bohus Fortress, Akershus Fortress, Bergenhus Fortress and the fortified city of Trondheim.^[11] The sub-regions corresponded to the church districts for the Lutheran church in Norway.

Len in 1536[]

• Båhus len (later termed Bohuslän after Denmark-Norway ceded it to Sweden by the Treaty of Roskilde in 1658)
• Bergenhus len (which included Northern Norway)

These four principal len were in the 1530s divided into approximately 30 smaller regions. From that point forward through the beginning of the 17th century the number of subsidiary len was reduced, while the composition of the principal len became more stable.^{[citation needed]}

Len in 1660[]

From 1660 Norway had nine principal len comprising 17 subsidiary len:

Len written as län continues to be used as the administrative equivalent of county in Sweden to this day. Each len was governed by a lenman.^[12]

Amt[]

With the royal decree of February 19, 1662, each len was designated an amt (plural amt) and the lenmann was titled amtmann, from German Amt (office), reflecting the bias of the Danish court of that period.^{[citation needed]}

Amt in 1671[]

After 1671 Norway was divided into four principal amt or stiftsamt and there were nine subordinate amt:

Amt in 1730[]

From 1730 Norway had the following amt:

At this time there were also two counties (grevskap) controlled by actual counts, together forming what is now Vestfold county:

Amt in 1760[]

In 1760 Norway had the following stiftamt and amt:^[13]

Fylke (2nd period)[]

From 1919 each amt was renamed a fylke (plural fylke(r)) (county) and the amtmann was now titled fylkesmann (county governor).

The county numbers are from the official numbering system ISO 3166-2:NO, which originally was set up to follow the coastline from the Swedish border in the southeast to the Russian border in the northeast, but with the numbering has changed with county mergers. The number 13, 16 and 17 were dropped, and the number 50 was added to account for changes over the years. The lack of a county number 13 is due to the city of Bergen no longer being its own county, and is unrelated to fear of the number 13.

In 2018, Sør-Trøndelag was merged with Nord-Trøndelag into the new county of Trøndelag, and several followed.

ISO-code	County	Admini­strative centre	Area (km2)	Pop. (2016)	County after 1 January 2020
01	Østfold	Sarpsborg	04,180.69	290,412	Viken
02	Akershus	Oslo	04,917.94	596,704
06	Buskerud	Drammen	14,910.94	278,028
03	Oslo	City of Oslo	00.454.07	660,987	Oslo
04	Hedmark	Hamar	27,397.76	195,443	Innlandet
05	Oppland	Lillehammer	25,192.10	188,945
07	Vestfold	Tønsberg	02,225.08	245,160	Vestfold og Telemark
08	Telemark	Skien	15,296.34	172,527
09	Aust-Agder	Arendal	09,157.77	115,873	Agder
10	Vest-Agder	Kristiansand	07,276.91	182,922
11	Rogaland	Stavanger	09,375.97	470,907	Rogaland
12	Hordaland	Bergen	15,438.06	517,601	Vestland
13	Not in use from 1972 onwards [a]
14	Sogn og Fjordane	Hermansverk	18,623.41	109,623
15	Møre og Romsdal	Molde	15,101.39	265,181	Møre og Romsdal
16	Not in use from 2018 onwards [b]
17	Not in use from 2018 onwards [b]
18	Nordland	Bodø	38,482.39	241,948	Nordland
19	Troms	Tromsø	25,862.91	164,613	Troms og Finnmark
20	Finnmark	Vadsø	48,631.04	075,886
50	Trøndelag [b]	Steinkjer[c]	41,254.29	450,496	Trøndelag

Fylke (3rd period)[]

In 2017 the Norwegian government announced the merge of the existing 19 fylker into 11 new fylker by 2020. As a result, several government tasks will be transferred to the new regions.^[15]

New fylker

• Troms og Finnmark, by merging Finnmark and Troms counties in 2020
• Nordland, no change, same as Nordland county
• Trøndelag, no change, same as Trøndelag county
• Møre og Romsdal, no change, same as Møre og Romsdal county
• Vestland, by merging Hordaland and Sogn og Fjordane counties in 2020
• Rogaland, no change, same as Rogaland county
• Agder, by merging Aust-Agder and Vest-Agder counties in 2020
• Vestfold og Telemark, by merging Vestfold and Telemark counties in 2020
• Innlandet, by merging Hedmark and Oppland counties in 2020
• Viken, by merging Akershus, Buskerud, and Østfold counties in 2020
• Oslo, no change, same as Oslo county

See also[]

• Municipalities of Norway
• Regions of Norway
• Traditional districts of Norway
• Metropolitan regions of Norway
• Subdivisions of the Nordic countries
• Lists of County Governors of Norway

References[]

Footnotes[]

Bibliography[]

• Danielsen, Rolf; Dyrvik, Ståle; Grønlie, Tore; Helle, Knut; Hovland, Edgar (2007) [1991]. Grunntrekk i norsk historie (1 ed.). Oslo: Universitetsforlaget. ISBN 978-82-00-21273-7.