section_path: Politics and government/Administrative divisions
section_name: Administrative divisions
paragraph_text: Administrative divisions
  
  Norway, a unitary state, is divided into fifteen first-level administrative counties (fylke). The counties are administered through directly elected county councils who elect the County Mayor. Additionally, the King and government are represented in every county by a County Governor (Norwegian: statsforvalteren). The counties are then sub-divided into 357 second-level municipalities (Norwegian: kommuner), which in turn are administered by directly elected municipal council, headed by a mayor and a small executive cabinet. The capital of Oslo is considered both a county and a municipality. Norway has two integral overseas territories out of mainland: Jan Mayen and Svalbard, the only developed island in the archipelago of the same name, located far to the north of the Norwegian mainland.
  
  There are 108 settlements that have town/city status in Norway (the Norwegian word by is used to represent these places and that word can be translated as either town or city in English). Cities/towns in Norway were historically designated by the King and used to have special rules and privileges under the law. This was changed in the late 20th century, so now towns/cities have no special rights and a municipality can designate an urban settlement as a city/town. Towns and cities in Norway do not have to be large. Some cities have over a million residents such as Oslo, while others are much smaller such as Honningsvåg with about 2,200 residents. Usually, there is only one town within a municipality, but there are some municipalities that have more than one town within it (such as Larvik Municipality which has the town of Larvik and the town of Stavern.