Norway is divided into 11 administrative regions, called counties (singular , plural ; from Old Norse: fylki from the word "folk", , , , ) 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 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, will be dissolved and the old counties they were created from will reemerge. The to-be-reestablished counties will see some minor border changes compared to when they were abolished, as some municipalities were merged across former county borders during the 2020 local government reform (no).
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 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).
Responsibilities and significance
Every county has two main organisations, both with underlying organisations. The county municipality (Fylkeskommune) has a county council (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. The county governor (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:
Rånrike
Vingulmark
Vestfold
Grenland
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:
Sunnmærafylke
Firdafylke (Nordfjord, Sunnfjord) 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 (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.