Counties of Norway

A geopolitical map of Norway, exhibiting its 19 first-order subnational divisions (fylker or "counties"), along with Svalbard and Jan Mayen

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Norway is divided into 19 administrative regions, called counties (singular Norwegian: fylke, plural Norwegian: fylker (Bokmål) / fylke (Nynorsk)); until 1918, they were known as amter. The counties form the first-level subdivisions of Norway and are further divided into 428 municipalities (kommune, pl. kommuner / kommunar). Svalbard and Jan Mayen are outside the county division and ruled directly on national level. The capital Oslo is considered both a county and a municipality.

In recent years, there has been some political debate as to whether counties are a practical, economical, or even necessary level of administration. See politics of Norway for more information.

List of counties

Below is a list of the Norwegian counties as they have been since 1919, 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 follows the coastline from the Swedish border in the southeast to the Russian border in the northeast. The number 13 was dropped from the system when the city of Bergen (county no. 13) was merged into Hordaland (county no. 12) in 1972. (There is no connection between the lack of a county number 13 and the belief that 13 is an unlucky number.)

ISO-code	County (Fylke)	Administrative centre	Governor	Area (km2)	Population (2013)
01	Østfold	Sarpsborg	Anne Enger	4,180.68	282,000
02	Akershus	Oslo	Nils Aage Jegstad (Mayor)	4,917.93	566,399
03	Oslo	City of Oslo	Fabian Stang (Mayor)	454.08	623,966
04	Hedmark	Hamar	Sigbjørn Johnsen	27,397.76	197,719
05	Oppland	Lillehammer	Kristin Hille Valla	25,192.09	187,254
06	Buskerud	Drammen	Kirsti Kolle Grøndahl	14,910.93	269,003
07	Vestfold	Tønsberg	Erling Lae	2,225.05	238,748
08	Telemark	Skien	Kari Nordheim-Larsen	15,296.32	170,902
09	Aust-Agder	Arendal	Øystein Djupedal	9,157.76	112,772
10	Vest-Agder	Kristiansand	Ann-Kristin Olsen	7,276.52	176,353
11	Rogaland	Stavanger	Magnhild Meltveit Kleppa	9,376.63	452,159
12	Hordaland	Bergen	Lars Sponheim	15,436.65	497,135
14	Sogn og Fjordane	Leikanger	Anne Karin Hamre	18,619.21	108,700
15	Møre og Romsdal	Molde	Lodve Solholm	15,099.65	259,404
16	Sør-Trøndelag	Trondheim	Kåre Gjønnes	18,839.37	302,755
17	Nord-Trøndelag	Steinkjer	Inge Ryan	22,414.96	134,443
18	Nordland	Bodø	Odd Eriksen	38,481.13	239,611
19	Troms	Tromsø	Svein Ludvigsen	25,862.92	160,718
20	Finnmark	Vadsø	Gunnar Kjønnøy	48,631.08	74,534

Map

History

Fylke

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 to 13th centuries

Finnmark (including northern Troms), the Faroe Islands, the Orkney Islands, Shetland, the Hebrides, Isle of Man, Iceland and Greenland were Norwegian skattland ("tax 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.^[3]

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^[4]–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.^[5] 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)
• Akershus len
• Trondheim len
• 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.^[6]

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.^[7]

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.^[8]

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:

• Laurvigen county
• Jarlsberg county

Amt in 1760

In 1760 Norway had the following stiftamt and amt:^[9]

Fylke

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

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 directed by the Norwegian government. It surveills the municipalities and receive complaints from people over their actions. It also controls areas where the government needs local direct ruling outside the municipalities.

See also

• Ranked list of Norwegian counties
• 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 (1991 (2007)). Grunntrekk i norsk historie (1 ed.). Oslo: Universitetsforlaget. ISBN 978-82-00-21273-7.  Check date values in: |date= (help)

Counties of Norway Akershus Aust-Agder Buskerud Finnmark Hedmark Hordaland Møre og Romsdal Nordland Nord-Trøndelag Oppland   Oslo Østfold Rogaland Sogn og Fjordane Sør-Trøndelag Telemark Troms Vest-Agder Vestfold