science

Counties of Norway

Counties of Norway is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Counties of Norway rather than just read about it. In short: The 15 counties of Norway are the first-level administrative divisions of Norway. The counties are further subdivided into 357 municipalities (Norwegian: kommune).

Key takeaways

Counties of Norway belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Counties of Norway to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Counties of Norway from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

The 15 counties of Norway are the first-level administrative divisions of Norway. The counties are further subdivided into 357 municipalities (Norwegian: kommune). 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 (Regionreformen i Norge).

Name The counties in Norway are called fylke (singular) and fylker (plural). This name comes from the Old Norse word fylki which means "district" or "county", but it is similar to the same root as "folk". It is similar in the minority languages in Norway: Northern Sami: fylka, Southern Sami: fylhke, Lule Sami: fylkka, Kven: fylkki. Prior to 1918, the counties were known as amt (singular) or amter (plural).

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 (but not part of Nordland).

Responsibilities and significance Every county has two main organisations, both with underlying organisations.

The county municipality (Norwegian: 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, among other things. The county governor (Norwegian: Statsforvalteren) 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 (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:

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

Raumafylke (Glåmdalen, Romerike, Solør) Heinafylke (Gjøvik, Hedmarken) Hadafylke (Hadeland, Land, Toten) Gudbrandsdal Østerdal Counties under the Gulating, located in Vestlandet with the seat at Gulen Municipality:

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 Shetland Islands), the Hebrides, the 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 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.

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 1536–1814. 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. 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.

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.

Amt With the royal decree of 19 February 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.

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:

… excerpt ends here. Continue reading the full article.

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Counties of Norway

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Counties of Norway claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Counties of Norway before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Counties of Norway ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Counties of Norway

In research: Counties of Norway appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Counties of Norway in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Counties of Norway is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 21st-century disestablishments in Norway, Administrative divisions in Europe, Counties of Norway, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Counties of Norway outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Counties of Norway in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Counties of Norway means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Counties of Norway out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Counties of Norway in simple terms?

The 15 counties of Norway are the first-level administrative divisions of Norway. The counties are further subdivided into 357 municipalities (Norwegian: kommune).

Why does Counties of Norway matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Counties of Norway?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Counties of Norway.