Counties of Norway


There are 15 counties in Norway. The 15 counties are administrative regions that are the first-level administrative divisions of Norway. The counties are further subdivided into 357 municipalities. The island territories of Svalbard and Jan Mayen are outside the county divisions and they are ruled directly from the national level. The capital city of Oslo is both a county and a municipality.
In 2017, the Solberg 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. This sparked popular opposition, with some calling for the reform to be reversed. The Storting voted to partly undo the reform on 14 June 2022, with Norway to have 15 counties from 1 January 2024. Three of the newly merged counties, namely Vestfold og Telemark, Viken and Troms og Finnmark, were dissolved and the old counties existing before the reform re-established with a few minor changes as some municipalities merged across former county borders and some switched counties during the 2020 local government reform.

Name

The counties in Norway are called fylke and fylker. This name comes from the Old Norse word which means "district" or "county", but it is similar to the same root as "folk". It is similar in the minority languages in Norway:,,,. Prior to 1918, the counties were known as amt or amter.

List of counties

Below is a list of the Norwegian counties, with their current administrative centres. The counties are administered both by appointees of the national government and 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.
CountyISO-codeCapitalMost populous municipalityGovernorMayorArea Pop.Electoral districtCounty governor agencyOfficial language form
OsloNO-03City of OsloOslo MunicipalityIngvild AleksandersenAnne Lindboe 454.12700,000OsloØstfold, Buskerud, Oslo og AkershusNeutral
NO-11StavangerStavanger MunicipalityBent HøieMarianne Chesak 9,377.10475,000RogalandRogalandNeutral
NO-15MoldeÅlesund MunicipalityElse-May NorderhusJon Aasen 14,355.62270,000Møre og RomsdalMøre og RomsdalNynorsk
NO-18BodøBodø MunicipalityTom Cato KarlsenKari Anne Bøkestad Andreassen 38,154.62239,000NordlandNordlandNeutral
NO-31SarpsborgFredrikstad MunicipalityIngvild AleksandersenSindre Martinsen-Evje 4,180.7299,647ØstfoldØstfold, Buskerud, Oslo and AkershusNeutral
NO-32OsloBærum MunicipalityIngvild AleksandersenThomas Sjøvold 4,918.0630,752AkershusØstfold, Buskerud, Oslo and AkershusNeutral
NO-33DrammenDrammen MunicipalityIngvild AleksandersenTore Opdal Hansen 14,908.0284,955BuskerudØstfold, Buskerud, Oslo and AkershusNeutral
NO-34HamarRingsaker MunicipalityKnut StorbergetEven Aleksander Hagen 52,072.44375,000Hedmark
Oppland		InnlandetNeutral
VestfoldNO-39TønsbergSandefjord MunicipalityTrond RønningenAnne Strømøy 2,167.7253,555VestfoldVestfold og TelemarkBokmål
TelemarkNO-40SkienSkien MunicipalityTrond RønningenSven Tore Løkslid 15,298.16175,546TelemarkVestfold and TelemarkNeutral
NO-42KristiansandKristiansand MunicipalityGina LundArne Thomassen 16,434.12299,000Aust-Agder
Vest-Agder		AgderNeutral
NO-46BergenBergen MunicipalityLiv Signe NavarseteJon Askeland 33,870.99632,000Hordaland
Sogn og Fjordane		VestlandNynorsk

Trööndelage		NO-50SteinkjerTrondheim MunicipalityFrank JenssenTomas Iver Hallem 42,201.59465,000Nord-Trøndelag
Sør-Trøndelag		TrøndelagNeutral
NO-55TromsøTromsø MunicipalityElisabeth AspakerKristina Torbergsen 26,189.43168,340TromsTroms og FinnmarkNeutral
NO-56VadsøAlta MunicipalityElisabeth AspakerHans-Jacob Bønå 48,637.4375,540FinnmarkTroms og FinnmarkNeutral

Responsibilities and significance

Every county has two main organisations, both with underlying organisations.
  1. The county municipality has a county council, 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, among other things.
  2. The county governor 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 each had its own legislative assembly or Thing, such as Gulating and Frostating. 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 often, but not necessarily, correspond to the historical areas.

''Fylke'' in the 10th–13th centuries

Counties under the Borgarting, located in Viken with the seat at Sarpsborg:
  • Rånrike
  • Vingulmark
  • Vestfold
  • Grenland
Counties under the Eidsivating, located in Oplandene with the seat at Eidsvoll:
  • Raumafylke
  • Heinafylke
  • Hadafylke
  • Gudbrandsdal
  • Østerdal
Counties under the Gulating, located in Vestlandet with the seat at Gulen Municipality:
  • Sunnmærafylke
  • Firdafylke
  • Sygnafylke
  • Valdres and Hallingdal
  • Hordafylke
  • Rygjafylke
  • Setesdal
  • Egdafylke
Counties under the Frostating, located in Trøndelag with the seat at Frosta:
  • Eynafylke
  • Sparbyggjafylke
  • Verdælafylke
  • Skeynafylke
  • Orkdælafylke
  • Gauldælafylke
  • Stjordælafylke
  • Strindafylke
  • Naumdælafylke
  • Nordmærafylke
  • Romsdælafylke
Counties not attached to a thing:
  • Jamtaland
  • Herjedalen
  • Håløygjafylke
  • *Helgeland
  • *Salten
  • *Lofoten and Vesterålen
  • *Trondenes
Finnmark, the Faroe Islands, the Orkney Islands, Shetland, the Hebrides, the Isle of Man, Iceland and Greenland were Norwegian skattland, 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 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.
  • Elvesysle
  • Rånrike
  • Borgarsysle
  • Romerike
  • Hedmark
  • Østerdalen
  • *"north of Åmot"
  • *"south of Åmot"
  • Gudbrandsdalen
  • *"north of Ruste"
  • *"south of Ruste"
  • Hadeland
  • Valdres and Hallingdal
  • Numedal and Telemark?
  • Tverrdalane and Modum?
  • Oslosysle
  • Tønsbergsysle
  • Skiensysle
  • Eastern part
  • Robyggjelag
  • Agder Midtsysla
  • Lista
  • Rygjafylke
  • *"north of the fjord"
  • *"south of the fjord"
  • Hordaland
  • Hardanger
  • Voss
  • Sogn
  • Sunnfjord
  • Nordfjord
  • Sunnmøre
  • Romsdal
  • Nordmøre?
  • *Nordmørafylke
  • Orkdalen
  • Gauldalen
  • Strinda
  • Herjedalen
  • Jemtland
  • Stjørdal
  • Skogn
  • Verdalen
  • Sparbu
  • Eynafylke
  • Northern part?
  • Namdalen
  • *"upper half"
  • *"lower half
  • Hålogaland
  • Troms?
  • Finnmark?