Norwegians driving around Norway this summer, and not least foreign tourists, may have found themselves with outdated maps once again. After a massive merger of several counties and municipalities, several have been split up, and new road signs are still being put up.
Many of the merger reversals (a result of the shift from a Conservatives-led government that was keen on regional reform to a more local-oriented Labour-Center in the last national election in 2021) took effect at the beginning of this year. Some formalities have and are taking longer, including sign-posting.
In short: Troms and Finnmark have returned to being their own separate counties, so have Vestfold and Telemark. The huge county called Viken, created through the unpopular mergers of several counties in the southeast, has been split up. That’s ushered in the return of Buskerud, Akershus and Østfold. Some other new counties that were formed through mergers, including Innlandet and Vestlandet, have pretty much remained intact, as have the two Agder counties.
It’s all resulted in Norway now having 15 counties (called fylker), down from 18 in 2018 but up from just 11 in 2020. The reform was supposed to save taxpayers billions over the years through economies of scale, but instead cost millions in sheer administrative costs, not to mention all the production and placement of new signs.
There have also been lots of mergers and de-mergers of municipalities, leaving Norway with a total of 357, at least for now, and some municipalities have moved from one county to another. That’s caused perhaps the biggest delay in correct signposting at municipal borders.
NewsinEnglish.no staff
