Bergen

Bergen fills the valleys and hillsides between seven mountains on the west coast, and its old heart wraps around Vågen, the harbour bay. Along the east side of the bay runs Bryggen, a row of tall, narrow wooden buildings in red, yellow and white with their gables to the quay. At the inner end is Torget, the fish market, partly under a roof since 2012. It is Norway's second city, but the centre is easy to walk.

Bring a rain jacket. Bergen is one of the wettest places in the country, with about 2.500 millimetres of rain in a normal year. The city has always lived from the sea: trade, shipping and, for the last decades, oil and gas. The name comes from Old Norse Bjǫrgvin, the meadow between the mountains.

Local knowledge: Bergen became a town in the days of King Olav Kyrre, by tradition in 1070, and was Norway's capital in the 1200s. From about 1350 to 1754 German merchants of the Hanseatic League ran their office from Bryggen, storing stockfish from northern Norway and grain from Europe. Fire was the city's great enemy, and the worst came on 19 May 1702, when most of the town burned down. Bryggen's wooden front row was rebuilt after it in the old style, on the same narrow plots. The fire also marked the move from tarred houses to painted ones, and new fire rules in 1707 brought the first chimney sweeps to town. Petter Dass, the priest-poet from Nordland, wrote a poem about it. In 1979 Bryggen went on UNESCO's World Heritage List.

Born here: Edvard Grieg (1843–1907), Norway's best-known composer, wrote the music to Peer Gynt. His home Troldhaugen, built in 1885, is now a museum, and he and his wife Nina are buried there. Violinist Ole Bull (1810–1880) was the first Norwegian artist to become famous abroad.

Visiting: the pin points to the tourist information in Mathallen on Strandkaien, by the fish market. It is open all year and sells fjord trips and the Bergen Card. Up Vetrlidsallmenningen from the fish market, Fløibanen climbs 302 metres up Fløyfjellet in about five minutes, with the city spread out below. On a rainy day, go to Bryggens Museum, built where a fire in 1955 cleared the ground for digs that turned up 597 rune inscriptions, or swim at AdO Arena. Parking in the centre is mostly limited to an hour or two. The city's motorhome parking at Mindemyren is open round the clock, right by the light rail stop, and the Bybanen gets you to the centre in about ten minutes.

Fact sheet

• People: 274.589 in Bergen, 294.860 in Bergen municipality
• County: Vestland
• Town since: about 1070
• Typical industries: oil and gas services, engineering and architecture firms, health care, with Haukeland University Hospital

Population on 1 January 2026, from Statistics Norway. Typical industries are the ones with a much bigger share of the jobs here than in Norway as a whole (Statistics Norway, 2025).