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A geopolitical map of Norway, exhibiting its 18 first-order subnational divisions (fylker or "counties"), along with Svalbard and Jan Mayen

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Norway is divided into 18 administrative regions, called counties (singular Norwegian: fylke, plural Norwegian: fylker (Bokmål) / fylke (Nynorsk) from Old Norse: fylki from the word "folk"); until 1918, they were known as amter. The counties form the first-level subdivisions of Norway and are further divided into 422 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 the current counties and to replace them with fewer, larger administrative regions (regioner).^[1]

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 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.

ISO-code	County (Fylke)	Administrative centre	Governor	Area (km2)	Population (2016)
01	Østfold	Sarpsborg	Anne Enger	4,180.69	290,412
02	Akershus	Oslo	Nils Aage Jegstad	4,917.94	596,704
03	Oslo	City of Oslo	Marianne Borgen (Mayor)	454.07	660,987
04	Hedmark	Hamar	Sigbjørn Johnsen	27,397.76	195,443
05	Oppland	Lillehammer	Kristin Hille Valla	25,192.10	188,945
06	Buskerud	Drammen	Kirsti Kolle Grøndahl	14,910.94	278,028
07	Vestfold	Tønsberg	Per Arne Olsen	2,225.08	245,160
08	Telemark	Skien	Kari Nordheim-Larsen	15,296.34	172,527
09	Aust-Agder	Arendal	Øystein Djupedal	9,157.77	115,873
10	Vest-Agder	Kristiansand	Ann-Kristin Olsen	7,276.91	182,922
11	Rogaland	Stavanger	Magnhild Meltveit Kleppa	9,375.97	470,907
12	Hordaland	Bergen	Lars Sponheim	15,438.06	517,601
13	No longer used[a]
14	Sogn og Fjordane	Hermansverk	Anne Karin Hamre	18,623.41	109,623
15	Møre og Romsdal	Molde	Lodve Solholm	15,101.39	265,181
16	No longer used[b]
17	No longer used[b]
18	Nordland	Bodø	Odd Eriksen	38,482.39	241,948
19	Troms	Tromsø	Bård Magne Pedersen	25,862.91	164,613
20	Finnmark	Vadsø	Gunnar Kjønnøy	48,631.04	75,886
50	Trøndelag	Steinkjer[c]	Frank Jenssen	41,254.29	450,496

Map

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 receive 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

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.^[4]

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^[5]–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.^[6] 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.^[7]

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.^[8]

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.^[9]

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:^[10]

Fylke (2nd period)

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

Fylke (3rd period)

In 2017 the Norwegian government announced the merge of the existing 19 fylker into 11 fylkeskommuner (regions) by 2020. As a result, several government tasks will be transferred to the new regions.^[12]

New fylkeskommuner (regions)

• 
  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)
  


• 
  Telemark og Vestfold (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

• 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 (2007) [1991]. Grunntrekk i norsk historie (1 ed.). Oslo: Universitetsforlaget. ISBN 978-82-00-21273-7.