The island territories of Svalbard and Jan Mayen are outside the county divisions and they are ruled directly from the national level.

The Storting voted to partly undo the reform on 14 June 2022, with Norway to have 15 counties from 1 January 2024.

The counties in Norway are called fylke (singular) and fylker (plural).

This name comes from the Old Norse word fylki which means "district" or "county", but it is similar to the same root as "folk".

The counties are administered both by appointees of the national government and by their own elected bodies.

The island territories of Svalbard and Jan Mayen lie outside of the county system of Norway.

Current day counties (fylker) often, but not necessarily, correspond to the historical areas.

Counties (folkland) under the Borgarting, located in Viken with the seat at Sarpsborg:[6] Counties (first three fylke, last two bilandskap) under the Eidsivating, located in Oplandene with the seat at Eidsvoll:[6] Counties under the Gulating, located in Vestlandet with the seat at Gulen:[7] Counties under the Frostating, located in Trøndelag with the seat at Frosta: Counties not attached to a thing: Finnmark (including northern Troms), the Faroe Islands, the Orkney Islands, Shetland (the Shetland Islands), the Hebrides, the Isle of Man, Iceland and Greenland were Norwegian skattland ("taxed countries"), and did not belong to any known counties or assembly areas.

The following shows a reconstruction of the different syssel in Norway c. 1300, including sub-syssel where these seem established.