Metropolitan regions of Norway


There are 16 statistical metropolitan areas in Norway, of which six count as "Greater City Regions" and ten as "City Regions". The classification comes from Storbymeldingen from the Norwegian Ministry of Local Government and Regional Development. This report was composed in 2002–2003 to create a coherent policy for the development of metropolitan areas within Norwegian society. It was presented by then Minister of Local Government and Regional Development Erna Solberg on 12 March 2003. The Greater City Regions contain cities with numbers of inhabitants ranging from around 60,000 to 1.4 million, while the City Regions range from around 45 to 175 thousand. This is out of a national population of around 5.2 million citizens.
The three most populous regions are the Greater Oslo Region, the Greater Bergen Region, and the Greater Stavanger Region.

Greater City Regions

Six Norwegian cities are considered Greater Cities. This classification is the result of an overall evaluation of these cities' population and their importance as regional centres. The six cities are Oslo, Bergen, Trondheim, Stavanger, Kristiansand and Tromsø. According to Storbymeldingen, these regions contained the following number of municipalities and inhabitants as of 1 July 2009 :
Greater City RegionMunicipalitiesInhabitants
in region 2010
Inhabitants
in region 2030
Inhabitants
in municipality 2010
Greater Oslo Region461,422,4431,835,191590 041
Greater Bergen Region14412,156478,926275,112
Greater Stavanger Region13321,412403,907122,602
Trondheim Region11261,759301,966169,343
Kristiansand Region10155,648185,05180,748
Tromsø Region275,57083,86970,818

City Regions

In addition to these six regions, there are ten lesser regions referred to as City Regions. The City Regions of Drammen and Moss are for many purposes considered part of the Greater Oslo Region, bringing the number down to eight. The City Regions, according to the same report, are the following :
City RegionMunicipalitiesInhabitants in 2009Inhabitants
in 2030
Mjøsa Cities10180,161201,829
Drammen Region8151,769190,055
Lower Glomma Region4143,992173,620
Haugesund/Stord Region10128,797156,830
Tønsberg Region7114,868140,742
Grenland5123,075159,312
Larvik/Sandefjord Region387,531100,897
Ålesund Region982,16597,604
Moss Region455,29066,887
Bodø Region348,87860,557