Oslo (between 1624 and 1925 - Christiania, from 1877/1897 also written Kristiania) is Norway's capital, smallest county in area and most populous city. The county and the city municipality are located in the central eastern region, in the innermost part of the Oslo Fjord. With its 1,019,513 inhabitants, the urban area consists wholly or partly of the buildings in Oslo and eleven nearby municipalities. Oslo Municipality is the center of the contiguous urban area and had 693,491 inhabitants (as of the first quarter of 2020). The entire Greater Oslo region had 1,546,706 inhabitants (as of 1 January 2020). The neighboring municipalities are Bærum and Ringerike in the west, Lunner in the north, Nittedal, Lillestrøm, Lørenskog and Enebakk in the east, and Nordre Follo and Nesodden in the south. Oslo is, as the only Norwegian municipality, also a county, and is thus in a special position with regard to local government. Modern Oslo comprises two historic municipalities, the historic market town of Oslo / Christiania, and the former rural municipality of Aker, which before the merger in 1948 was 27 times larger than the then Oslo and which thus constitutes most of the modern city's territory. Oslo / Christiania was the capital of the Akershus castle and the Akershus diocese, which included most of Eastern Norway, until it was separated as a separate sub-district in 1842, and continues to be the administrative center for the sub-district / county Akershus to which the city previously belonged. The modern municipality was named after the medieval city of Oslo in 1925; before 1925, Oslo designated a much smaller area, now known as the Old Town, which until the end of the 19th century was a rural area in Aker outside the city.
Oslo is characterized by proximity to forests and fields and by a
rich flora and fauna. About 2⁄3 of the municipality's area consists
of forests, green areas and water outside the urban development
itself, which gives a population density of around 5,000 inhabitants
per km² in the built-up part of the municipality. The densest part
of the city is located in a cauldron surrounded by green hills.
Rivers such as Alnaelva, Akerselva and Lysakerelva flow from the
hills through Oslogryta and out into the fjord. One kilometer east
of Oslo Central Station is the Ekeberg slope with a nature reserve
and with Stone Age monuments from up to 10,400 years back in time.
Marka is a short subway ride away from the city center.
East
of Bjørvika, below Ekeberg, is the Old Town, in archeological
circles referred to as the Nordic Pompeii due to thick cultural
layers underground. According to archaeologists, Oslo was
established with an urban structure around the year 1000. The old
town's core area is Northern Europe's largest medieval urban area
after Visby, and in its entirety protected. In King Håkon
Magnusson's time, the medieval town was at its largest. Håkon
expanded the city to the east with, among other things, the Oslo
Franciscan monastery. On the opposite side of Bjørvika, he built
Akershus Castle and Fortress as his residence, and in 1314 power was
concentrated in Oslo. After Norway got a common king with Denmark,
Copenhagen became a city of residence and a seat for the state
administration. Oslo retained some capital functions throughout the
Danish era, and was referred to as the Capital.
Oslo was the
area in Norway that was hardest hit by the Black Death. Then
followed the 1400s and 1500s with a further decline, demographically
and economically. The Reformation meant that Oslo also lost the
church as a significant workplace. After the three-day city fire in
1624, King Christian IV decided, against the will of the citizens,
that the city should be rebuilt on the opposite side of Bjørvika by
Akershus Fortress. The city was to be built with fireproof houses in
masonry for the nobility and the rich, while ordinary citizens could
build in brickwork. The city was given a city plan with straight
streets and rectangular quarters according to the ideals of the
Renaissance, and it was named Christiania after the king. The oldest
Christiania is today known as Kvadraturen.
At the dissolution
of the Danish-Norwegian union in 1814, the city was obvious as the
capital of the independent state of Norway. Oslo was a smaller city
by European standards until the 19th century, but after
industrialization, growth accelerated. Around 1900, the city was a
well-established industrial center with almost 250,000 inhabitants.
In 1925, the capital was named Oslo after the old town under
Ekebergåsen. In 1948, Aker municipality was incorporated, and
several of Akergårdene were expanded into suburbs. After a period of
relatively stable population, Oslo is again in strong growth and
growing faster than other Nordic capitals. The rising population is
mainly due to immigration from abroad. As of 1 January 2012, 23 per
cent of Oslo's population are immigrants, with Norwegian-Swedes and
Norwegian-Pakistanis as the largest minority groups.
Name and
etymology
The name "Oslo" was originally used for the built-up
area on the site which from 1925 is called the Old Town. In the
Middle Ages, the name was written in Norse, including Anslo, Ásló
and Ósló (first known in 1225). Anslo was also written in Low
German, probably to reproduce a nasal pronunciation. Peder Claussøn
Friis wrote the name as Opslo.
The name has been explained in
various ways through the ages and the age of the name is uncertain.
Peder Claussøn Friis wrote in Norway's description, published in
1613, that "Oslo" comes from "Loens os". The explanation has been
school literature for a long time. Two factors cast doubt on the
more than four hundred-year-old theory: First, the earliest written
evidence for the river name "Loen" can be found in his own Norway
description from 1613; in the medieval sources the river is called
«Oln» or «Eln», later «Alna» or «Elna». Secondly, according to the
linguists, the juxtaposition of the joints is incorrect. If Oslo had
come from "Loens os", the city would have had the name Loaros, cf.
Nidaros and Røros.
The last part of the name is usually interpreted in light of the
Norse lo in the sense plain, meadow plain or river plain. What is
today Greenland was a shallow swampy area. The first part is
apparently related to the Norse ace in the sense of ridge, or in the
sense of god. The interpretations are thus "åslletta" (plain below
the hill) or "gudesletta" (plain of the gods). The latter
interpretation is also justified by the fact that in the sense god
had the Old Norse form «* ansuR», and Oslo was written «Anslo» in
Old Low German and Dutch, and in Latin «Ansloa» or «Ansloia».
According to Frode Korslund, "Ósló" is a younger religion of "Ásló"
which is interpreted as "plain under the hill", Korslund believes
that comparison with similar place names and topography supports
this interpretation. In the Middle Ages, the vowels ó and á were
pronounced quite similarly, and the transition from Ásló to Ósló,
according to Korslund, took place through vocal assimilation. In the
18th and 19th centuries, the usual spelling was Opslo or Opsloe.
Barent Langenes' map from 1602 writes Anslou, Janssonius' map
from 1658 indicates Obslo (in addition to Christiania), Baleus' map
(1662) has Opslo and Sanson's map (1668) has Obslo and Anslo.
After 1624
After the great fire in 1624 and the
reconstruction on the west side of Bjørvika, the town was named
Christiania after King Christian IV. From the end of the 19th
century, the spelling Kristiania was also used, first in state
contexts from 1877, and in municipal ones from 1897. No formal
decision was ever made to move to K, and private individuals could
write the name of the city as they wanted. The name was abbreviated
Chr., Chra, Chria and Xania, in line with the fact that the letter X
was widely used as an abbreviation for «christ (i) -» / «krist (i)
-», also in personal names in church books. Oslo remained the name
of the former urban area east of the Akerselva, outside Christiania
itself.
From the 1860s, some prominent women and men began to
use Oslo instead of Christiania, including the painter and women's
rights activist Aasta Hansteen. After the dissolution of the union
in 1905, the idea of a name change became more relevant.
Kristiania's trade stand was negative to the idea of a name
change, and had the majority in the city council on its side. On 11
July 1924, the Storting ruled by law that Norway's capital would be
called Oslo from 1 January 1925. Since Oslo at that time, the name
of the district included the medieval city and the roof fields - an
area that was previously located in Aker and which ended up within
the city limits at the city expansions in 1859 and 1878 respectively
- this parish had to be renamed. They then chose the unofficially
incorporated name of the old Oslo, the Old Town.
In 2009, the
majority in the city council's Culture and Education Committee
agreed to call Oslo the center of Kristiania, following a proposal
from the Liberal Party and with support from the city council party
Conservatives and mayor Fabian Stang. This aroused opposition from
the Conservative Party's coalition partner the Progress Party and
from parts of the opposition (Red and Labor Party), before it came
up for consideration in the city council. The proposal was thus
never adopted.
Oslo is also called Tigerstaden. The starting
point for the nickname is apparently Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson's poem
"Siste sang" from Digte og Sange (1870). In the poem, "tiger" is
used symbolically for a ruthless metropolitan society (implicitly
Christiania) that attacks a "horse of the country" (implicitly
Bjørnson) during ovations from the "people". The poem declares no
winner, but states that «the battle has no end». Oslo municipality
used tiger as a logo when the city celebrated its 1000th anniversary
in 2000, which received a mixed reception in Oslo.
In the
2010s, Oslove was proposed as an official name in Southern Sami. The
name has been used among southern Sami since the late 20th century,
but is also inspired by the meaning it gets as a telescopic word in
English ("Oslo love"); Oslo is not even located in the South Sami
language area, which has its center of gravity in Trøndelag and
Helgeland. Among Kvens in Troms and Finnmark, Uslu has been used
about the city.
History
Timeline
The area that makes up
Oslo is part of the 800s-900s in Viken, the northernmost Danish
province; control later alternates between Danish and Norwegian
kings, and Denmark claims the area until 1241
The episcopate of
Oslo was founded in 1070.
The town was set on fire by Erik Emune
(Danish king) in 1137.
Inge Krokrygg dies in battle against Håkon
Herdebrei on the ice under Ekeberg in 1161.
Bagels and birch
trees fight in 1197.
Birkebeiner fights against farmers from
Viken, on the ice in Bjørvika in 1200.
The battle in Oslo between
Duke Skule and King Håkon Håkonsson in 1240.
Akershus Fortress
resists Duke Erik of Sweden's attack in 1308.
The royal power in
Norway is centralized in Oslo from 1314.
Akershus Fortress is
attacked by Karl Knutsson in 1449.
King James VI of Scotland and
Princess Anna of Denmark married in Oslo in 1589.
Oslo was
rebuilt west of the Akerselva by order of King Christian IV in 1624.
Before the city fire this year, the city was east of the river.
After reforming the civil administration under the autocracy,
Christiania was part of the Akershus diocese.
Charles XII
conquered the city in 1716.
The census is held for the first time in 1769, and it counts
7,469 inhabitants in the city.
Christiania was separated from
Akershus as a separate county (county) in 1842.
Aker herred was
incorporated into Oslo municipality in 1948.
Oldest
registered settlement
The oldest registered traces of settlement
in the Oslo area are located by Elgsrudtjernet in Sørmarka, and are
approximately 11,000 years old. The Ekeberg area has also been
densely populated already in the Stone Age. The oldest traces on
Ekeberg are dated by the National Heritage Board to be approximately
10,400 years old. Here are also rich deposits of Bronze Age and Iron
Age monuments.
The Viking Age and the High Middle Ages
In
Viking times, the area that makes up modern Oslo was part of Viken,
which then constituted the northernmost Danish province. The later
Oslo was, for example. within Harald Blåtann's Danish kingdom. The
first Norwegian king to take control of Viken may have been Olav
Tryggvason (Norwegian king ca. 995–1000), but Danish kings continued
to claim Viken until King Valdemar Seier, who died in 1241.
Old Oslo
According to Snorri's royal saga, Kaupstaden Oslo was
founded around the year 1048 by King Harald Hardråde. Archaeological
excavations in the 1970s have shown that Oslo had an early urban
structure as early as around the year 1000. In 1070, Oslo became the
episcopal see. The city's cathedral, Sankt Hallvardskatedralen, was
built on the hill by Oslo square at the beginning of the 12th
century. Oslo School, also known as Oslo Cathedral School, was
founded in 1153.
The battle of Oslo in 1240, was fought by
the forces of Duke Skule against King Håkon Håkonssons.
During the High Middle Ages, the population doubled, estimated at
3,500. In the decades around the year 1300, the medieval city of
Oslo was at its largest. Håkon Magnussons, Duke of Eastern Norway
towards the end of the 13th century, started a number of
construction activities, including the expansion of St. Mary's
Church and the start of Akershus Castle and Fortress. When Håkon was
to take over the royal crown in 1299 after the death of his brother
Eirik II, he chose Oslo as the coronation city. In 1314, power was
centralized to Oslo, among other things by the rector of St. Mary's
Church being appointed chancellor of the kingdom forever. The newly
appointed chancellor was given the task of keeping the king's seal
and being the leader of a national council.
Old Oslo was hit
by repeated fires. Among other things, the city was looted and
burned by Duke Erik of Södermanland in 1308. The still unfinished
fortress withstood the siege, and the city was rebuilt on the old
plots. During the Black Death, the population was reduced by about a
third. During the union period with Denmark, the city lost its
status and stagnated financially. The Reformation reduced the
church's importance as an economic power factor, and the loss of
jobs contributed to the city's decline. The Reformation made most of
the city's many churches and monasteries redundant, and they were
therefore left to decay and plunder after the city fires.
During the Swedish siege in 1567, the citizens themselves set the
city on fire, and then rebuilt it. Oslo also had a well-educated
academic environment associated with the cathedral and the school.
The so-called Oslo Humanists were a scholarly circle with a
significant literary production. Through their work, they made Oslo
the country's cultural center between 1580 and 1610.
Christiania from 1624
The three-day city fire of August 1624 was
fatal. Of the city's monumental buildings, only two survived the
fire: Hallvard Cathedral and Oslo's then diocese. (In the wake of
the Reformation, the Bishop of Oslo had moved to the east wing of
the former Olav Monastery, which in 1623 was added to a more modern
bishop's courtyard). The devastating fire led to the town being
newly built on the opposite side of Bjørvika at the request of King
Christian IV. At the same time, the city was named Christiania after
the king.
On Stortorget in Oslo is a statue of Christian IV,
made by Carl Ludvig Jacobsen.
Christiania was built as a
fortified city surrounded by ramparts with bastions and with
Akershus as a citadel. The zoning plan according to the ideals of
the Renaissance, with straight and wide streets around right-angled
quarters, was to prevent future fires. The orthogonal street network
was the origin of the special Norwegian word kvartal, which is not
known with this meaning in other Nordic languages. The original
Christiania within the ramparts with its four districts or
neighborhoods was therefore called the quarters, until in the 20th
century the term Kvadraturen was used for this area.
Christian IV also introduced coercion as a fire prevention
measure. He ordered that noble and wealthy citizens should build in
masonry, while ordinary citizens could build in masonry.
Half-timbering became the most common method of construction; at the
first fire assessment in 1766 was approx. 50% of the front houses
built in half-timbering. But many defied the brick wall and built
houses of half-timber. It was reluctantly accepted by the
authorities, and from 1657 it was allowed to build log houses in the
new quarters on fulfilled beach land in Bjørvika. After a large city
fire that in 1686 destroyed the quarters west of Christiania peat,
most of the houses were rebuilt in half-timber, and only after the
next major fire in 1708 was the brick wall completed. In 1766, the
log houses amounted to approx. 30% of the buildings and brick houses
only 20%.
Around the town west of Akerselva, the inhabitants
were given a 4.5 square kilometer area as urban land, common land
for use as pasture and for cultivation, and where each property in
the city could have a piece of fence as its own loop. Both on the
urban land and east of the Akerselva, more self-grown suburbs arose,
where many workers settled in cheaper wooden houses, but without the
right to run their own business. After the fire in 1686, the
ramparts around the city were closed and the city's new cathedral
built outside. In 1736, the market trade was moved after the
Cathedral, to the current Stortorget. The suburbs now began to
expand northwards. The 18th century was an economic upswing with
significant growth in shipping and timber exports, and the
population increased towards the end of the union era.
In
1661, the medieval city council, which consisted of mayors and
councilors, was transformed into an autocratic city governing body,
the magistrate, a college of the king's officials. The civic
influence took place through a weak exchange and from 1730 "the
twelve elected men", an elected body with a certain influence on the
city government.
During the time of autocracy, the perception
of Christiania as the capital of Norway existed, although the city
gradually lost its special position. In 1686, the town clerk
Kastberg from Trondheim described Christiania as the country's
capital in terms of politics and the judiciary, while Bergen was the
country's capital in terms of trade. Bergen was also a much larger
city. Between 1625 and 1644, eleven lords' days were held in Norway,
half of these in Akershus, four in Bergen and one in Trondheim. The
pillar assemblies held at Akershus were abolished during the
dictatorship. Cases concerning mineral extraction were decided at
the mining area at Kongsberg.
The capital Christiania
When
Norway was separated from Denmark in 1814, Christiania became the
capital of the independent state of Norway. Before the national
assembly at Eidsvoll, there was talk of several capitals in Norway,
the diocesan capitals Christiania, Kristiansand, Bergen and
Trondheim, which were the main cities in each region and each
diocese. According to historian Jacob Maliks, the constitution meant
a centralized unitary state where power was concentrated in
Christiania. Before 1814, there was partly different legislation for
the diocesan offices, the military was organized around the diocesan
capitals, and there was also the management of public finances that
was supervised directly from Copenhagen. From the diocesan court, it
could be appealed directly to the Supreme Court in Copenhagen. With
the exception of Zahlkassen, no central institutions in Norway were
established before 1814. When a request was made for a separate
university in Norway, Kristiansand, Kongsberg (where the Berg
seminar was already), Kristiania and Hamar were relevant. The office
of governor was abolished in 1771. According to Knut Mykland, Norway
did not have its own central administration at the beginning of the
19th century. The diocesan offices were the most important
administrative function and these regions were relatively separate
from each other.
In 1800, Copenhagen was the capital of
Norway, but Christiania and Bergen were larger than some Danish
provincial cities. Including the suburbs, Christiania had just over
12,000 inhabitants in 1814, while Bergen had 17,000, and Copenhagen
by comparison more than 100,000 inhabitants. The next cities in
Denmark itself were Helsingør, Odense, Ålborg, Randers and Århus
with 5,000–6,000 inhabitants each, and in the duchies of Flensburg
with 13,000, Altona with 23,000, Kiel and Rendsborg with 7,000 each
and Glückstadt with 5,000 .
During the Napoleonic Wars of
1807, the sea route between Norway and Denmark became unsafe. To
take care of the government of Norway in the king's place, a
government commission and a number of other public bodies were set
up in Christiania under the leadership of Prince Christian August.
Herman Wedel-Jarlsberg and Enevold Falsen also joined the
commission. The National Assembly decided that the Storting should
meet in the kingdom's capital, without specifying the name of the
city. Nicolai Wergeland proposed "Christiania Bye" instead of the
Capital of the Kingdom in § 68.
The state administration and the national institutions that were
established created the conditions for new growth. Public servants
with good purchasing power and the building of national institutions
with their buildings stimulated demand. An even stronger growth
factor was industrialization, which really gained momentum after
1840. The 19th century was a time of strong expansion for the city,
and many public buildings were erected - the Palace, the University
buildings, the Storting building, the National Theater and many
more. The public buildings west of Kvadraturen were built on plots
in the new district which was planned by the Castle's architect
Linstow in 1838, with Karl Johans gate as the main axis. The
quarters here attracted better-off sections of the population who
settled in tenements and later also in residential areas such as
Homansbyen. The bulk of the industrial development took place at the
same time along the Akerselva on the east side of the city, and the
workers settled as close to the factories as possible. This led to
the social divide between the eastern edge and the western edge
which has since characterized the city. At the end of the 1830s,
Christiania passed Bergen as the country's largest city. In the
1840s, about half of Christiania's population was associated with
the function as capital, including the many construction works that
the capital function entailed.
In the second half of the 19th
century, new districts emerged to provide housing for the immigrants
who were to staff the new factories. On 1 January 1859, Bymarken and
part of Aker municipality with 9,551 inhabitants were incorporated
into Christiania. On 1 January 1878, further parts of Aker (with
18,970 inhabitants) were transferred to the capital. The background
for these urban expansions was that they wanted to regulate the
social and building conditions in the suburbs and introduce wall
constraints to reduce the risk of fire. In the 1880s and 1890s,
there was a boom with an increasingly hectic construction activity,
where much of what is today called the brick town with tenements was
built. After the crash in 1899, construction activity fell sharply,
and from 1905 there was almost a standstill until 1910/1911, when
the municipality began to get involved in housing construction.
The city of Oslo
Growth continued at a somewhat slower pace
throughout the 20th century. A large-scale zoning plan from the
1930s for Etterstad was partially realized, but the work was stopped
by the war. The area was transferred from Aker to Oslo in 1946 in
connection with development according to a new plan. In 1948, the
area and population increased significantly when the remaining parts
of Aker municipality in Akershus were incorporated into the capital.
Aker municipality was then 27 times larger than Oslo in geographical
extent and had around 133,000 inhabitants. The city's new town hall
was completed in 1950 after being under construction since 1931.
In the 1950s, a large-scale development of slums in the former
Østre Aker was carried out to solve the housing shortage in Oslo.
Grefsen and Kjelsås were also expanded, mainly with villas and
semi-detached houses. The Drabant towns around the Baltic Sea had
had a city tram connection with the city since the interwar period,
but this was significantly upgraded when the metro was opened in
1966 and also connected Groruddalen to the city center. The western
and eastern tracks were connected in 1993 with the Fellestunnelen.
The city's 1000th anniversary was celebrated in 2000, just 50
years after the city's 900th anniversary. This was justified by the
fact that recent archaeological excavations showed that Oslo had an
urban structure already around the year 1000; The Cultural History
Museum stated in 2011 that «the oldest urban settlement that has so
far been excavated in the Old Town dates back to approx. 1025 ».
The previous 900th anniversary was justified by the fact that
Snorre in Heimskringla says that Oslo was founded around the year
1048 by King Harald Hardråde.