Historically, the words (
market town), (small seaport), or were used for a town or city. Each of these were granted certain special
rights based on their classification and they did hold administrative authority within their borders. A ladested was subordinate to a kjøpstad and over time some of the ladesteds were "upgraded" to the status of kjøpstad in order to gain more trading rights. In 1665, Norway had 20 towns. There were 9 full market towns (
kjøpstad): Bergen, Oslo, Trondheim, Tønsberg, Stavanger, Skien, Fredrikstad, Halden, and Kristiansand. There were two mountain towns {
bergstad): Kongsberg and Røros. There were 9 market seaports (
ladested): Larvik, Moss, Porsgrunn, Molde, Kragerø, Risør, Holmestrand, Mandal, and Drammen (which was actually 2 towns: Bragernes and Strømsø). All of the
ladested places on this list were later upgraded to
kjøpstads. During the 1800s, urbanization took hold in Norway and many new towns/cities were added. The special trading rights for towns/cities were abolished in 1857. Before 1996, the
city status was awarded by the king and Government through the
Ministry of Local Government and Regional Development. Since then, the status of town/city is decided by each municipal council and then it is formally accepted by the state. Since 1997, a municipality must have a minimum of 5,000 inhabitants in order to declare city status for one of its settlements. In 1999, the municipal council of
Bardu Municipality declared city status for
Setermoen, only to be rejected because the municipality fell short of the population limit. One exception is
Honningsvåg in
Nordkapp Municipality, where the municipality actually has less than 5,000 inhabitants but declared city status before the limit was implemented by law in 1997. Because of the new laws in 1996-1997, Norway witnessed a rapid rise in the number of cities after that time. A number of relatively small settlements are now called
by, such as
Brekstad with 1,828 inhabitants and
Kolvereid with 1,448 inhabitants. Among the cities of today which got this status before 1996,
Tvedestrand with 1,983 inhabitants is the smallest. On another note, the laws of 1996 allowed some settlements which lost their city status in the 1960s to regain it.
Oslo, founded in the 11th century, is the largest city and also the
capital of Norway. Oslo is the only city in Norway that is consolidated with its municipality and county, thus the
city of Oslo,
Oslo Municipality, and
Oslo County are all one unified unit of government. ==Cities and towns in Norway==