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 is made that the death penalty is off the table. The Constitution of Norway was extensively amended in May 2014. The new article 93 in the constitution explicitly prohibits capital punishment (""Every person has the right to life. No one can be sentenced to death."") along with torture, inhumane or degrading punishments, and slavery, and compels the government to protect against these practices. Opinion polls have showed that about 1 in 4 Norwegians support the death penalty, with the highest support among Progress Party voters, among whom the support, as expressed in a poll from 2010, is at 51 percent.