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Counties of Norway

Counties of Norway
Norges fylker (Bokmål)
Noregs fylke (Nynorsk)
CategoryUnitary unit
LocationNorway
Number15 counties (as of 2024-01-01)
AreasSmallest (including water): Oslo, 454.12 km2 (175.34 sq mi)
Largest (including water): Innlandet, 52,072.44 km2 (20,105.28 sq mi)
Government
Subdivisions

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 (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.[1] 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.[2] Three of the newly merged counties, namely Vestfold og Telemark, Viken[3][4] and Troms og Finnmark,[5] 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 (Kommunereformen i Norge).

  1. ^ "Dette er Norges nye regioner". vg.no. 21 February 2017. Archived from the original on 9 March 2018. Retrieved 28 April 2018.
  2. ^ "Fylkesinndelingen fra 2024". 5 July 2022.
  3. ^ Lilleås, Heidi Schei (October 2019). "Monica Mæland om Viken-dramaet: Vil ikke spekulere". Nettavisen.
  4. ^ Lars Roede, "Viken og Innlandet: Amatørmessige logoer og uhistoriske navn", Aftenposten, 11 January 2020
  5. ^ Grønning, Trygve (2021-03-17). "Fylkesrådslederen om sammenslåingen: – Staten har påført oss dype sår". NRK (in Norwegian Bokmål). Retrieved 2021-03-29.

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