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
Aristocracy of Norway the 1970s and 2000. During parts of the Romantic Nationalist epoch and the subsequent worshipping of Vikings, when it was popular and/or gave a particular high status to demonstrate descent from the 'real' (i.e. Medieval, non-foreign) noble families and kings of Norway, fraudulent pedigrees flourished. This was the case also during the illegitimate National Unification rule during Germany's occupation of Norway (1940–1945). The medieval aristocracy called themselves hird and later ‘free men’ likewise as commoners were called ‘unfree’. Knights were gathered in a particular class known as the Knighthood (), which stood above what was called ‘ordinary nobility’ (). The