List of towns and cities in Norway

In Norway today, there are 108 towns/cities, but they have no legal authority or powers and they are not an administrative body, it is simply a designation.

Each of these were granted certain special rights based on their classification and they did hold administrative authority within their borders.

There were 9 full market towns (kjøpstad): Bergen, Oslo, Trondheim, Tønsberg, Stavanger, Skien, Fredrikstad, Halden, and Kristiansand.

There were 9 market seaports (ladested): Larvik, Moss, Porsgrunn, Molde, Kragerø, Risør, Holmestrand, Mandal, and Drammen (which was actually 2 towns: Bragernes and Strømsø).

Since 1997, a municipality must have a minimum of 5,000 inhabitants in order to declare city status for one of its settlements.

[3] Because of the new laws in 1996-1997, Norway witnessed a rapid rise in the number of cities after that time.

On another note, the laws of 1996 allowed some settlements which lost their city status in the 1960s to regain it.