Norwegian administrative units

Johan I. Borgos:

Norwegian administrative units


This text will try to explain the Norwegian administrative units, and it is aimed at people who want to know where to look for genealogy resources. First of all three important facts:
1. There are three levels, with the state as top and the local administration as bottom.
2. 'Secular' units and 'church' units at the same level can have different borders.
3. During the last four hundred years most of the units have changed borders and names.

First some basic points about the secular units: Norway is divided into 19 counties. The Norwegian word is 'fylke' (pl. 'fylker'). Once they were called 'amt', and their individual names have changed, too. Here are the names we use today: Østfold, Akershus, Oslo, Hedmark, Oppland, Buskerud, Vestfold, Telemark, Aust-Agder, Vest-Agder, Rogaland, Hordaland, Sogn og Fjordane, Møre og Romsdal, Sør-Trøndelag, Nord-Trøndelag, Nordland, Troms, Finnmark.

Each county consists of local administrative units called 'kommune' (pl. 'kommuner'). This level was created in 1837, but then they were called 'herred' or 'herad' (pl. 'herreder' or 'herad'). Oslo fylke has only one 'kommune', Nordland fylke tops the list with 45. In 1964 the total number of 'kommuner' was reduced from nearly 750 to 440. In many cases the borders were adjusted in the same process to better suit today's communications.

In the church administration the diocese ('bispedømme') is roughly speaking an equivalent to the county. There are however only ten dioceses, here listed in the same geographical progression as the counties: Borg, Oslo, Hamar, Tunsberg, Agder, Stavanger, Bjørgvin, Møre, Nidaros, Sør-Hålogaland, Nord-Hålogaland.

The local level equivalent to the 'kommune' is the parish. There are two kinds of parishes in Norway:
- 'Prestegjeld', in most cases identical with the 'kommune' in extent and name.
- If there were more than one church ('kirke') in the 'prestegjeld' in earlier centuries, there will usually also be a 'kirkesokn' or 'sokn' for each church, and with their own names.
The church registers may contain information from the whole 'prestegjeld' or only a 'kirkesokn'.

A table may give a better overview:

Administrative units in Norway
Secular administrationChurch administration
Top levelThe stateThe state
Regional levelFylke (amt)Bisped�mme
Local levelKommune (herred)Prestegjeld/(kirke-)sokn

For the genealogist the parishes are the most important and interesting units. Most of the Norwegians (94%) belong to the Evangelical Lutheran church today. A hundred years ago and earlier the percentage was even higher than that. Therefore, the main problem for the genealogist is not to find what kind of church his or her ancestors belonged to, but to identify which church building they used.

To find the right parish when an old name is the only clue, you must solve two questions:
- What name does it have today? You may discover that many 'kommuner' and parishes share the same name. This creates problems even for the Norwegian genealogist. In censuses you may meet another problem: Different spellings of the same name.
- Which 'kommune' contains this parish? Here the border revisions can create some confusion: An old parish may be divided between two or more 'kommuner'.

Don't despair! Every state archive in Norway has a very detailed information about the borders of the administrative units and how they have changed. Therefore there is one more question to solve:
- Which state archive does the parish you are interested in belong to? Of course that's also where you'll find most of the genealogy resources you need.

Here are the Norwegian state archives ('statsarkiv') and the counties that belong to each of them:
- Statsarkivet i Oslo: Oslo, Akershus, Østfold
- Statsarkivet i Hamar: Hedmark, Oppland
- Statsarkivet i Kongsberg: Buskerud, Vestfold, Telemark
- Statsarkivet i Kristiansand: Aust-Agder, Vest-Agder
- Statsarkivet i Stavanger: Rogaland
- Statsarkivet i Bergen: Hordaland, Sogn og Fjordane
- Statsarkivet i Trondheim: Møre og Romsdal, Sør-Trøndelag, Nord-Trøndelag, Nordland
- Statsarkivet i Tromsø: Troms, Finnmark
And don't forget the top level archive: Riksarkivet (Oslo).



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Other pages by Johan I. Borgos on Norway.
... Norwegian Local History Books
... Tracing Norwegian Immigrants
... Norwegian Farm Names
... Norwegian Naming Patterns
... The Nordic Characters




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