When the local council system was introduced in Norway in 1837-38, the country had 392 municipalities.
A committee led by Nikolai Schei, formed in 1946 to examine the situation, proposed hundreds of mergers to reduce the number of municipalities and improve the quality of local administration.
This number continued to slowly decrease throughout the remainder of the 20th century.
[3] By January 2002, there were 434 municipalities in Norway, and Erna Solberg, Minister of Local Government and Regional Development at the time, expressed a wish to reduce the current tally by 100.
[5] The project was abandoned by Solberg's successor Åslaug Haga in early 2006.