Counties of Norway Counties of Norway Norway is divided into 18 administrative regions, called counties (singular , plural (Bokmål) / "fylke" (Nynorsk) from Old Norse: "fylki" from the word "folk"); until 1918, they were known as "amter". The counties form the first-level subdivisions of Norway and are further divided into 422 municipalities ("kommune", pl. "kommuner" / "kommunar"). The island territories of Svalbard and Jan Mayen are outside the county division and ruled directly at the national level. The capital Oslo is considered both a county and a municipality. In 2017 the government decided to abolish the current counties and to replace them with
Capital punishment in Norway Capital punishment in Norway Capital punishment in Norway () has been constitutionally prohibited since 2014. Before that, it had been fully abolished in 1979, and earlier, from 1905 the penal code had abolished capital punishment in peacetime. In practice the last execution in peacetime was carried out on 25 February 1876, when Kristoffer Nilsen Grindalen was beheaded in Løten, but several people, mainly Norwegians and Germans, were executed after the Second World War and the years of Nazi occupation; among them Vidkun Quisling. In addition to the usual capital crimes of murder and treason, medieval Norwegian law demanded execution also