Drammen

Drammen is built on both banks of the Drammenselva, just where the river runs into the Drammensfjord, with wooded ridges climbing steeply on either side. Bragernes is the old town on the north bank, Strømsø the one on the south. Bragernes torg, the long square running from the church to the river, is the largest in Norway. About 126.000 people live in the Drammen urban area, which spills over into four neighbouring municipalities.

The river made the town. Timber was floated down it from the 1200s until 1970, and in the 1500s Drammen was Norway's most important timber port. Today the harbour is Norway's biggest for cars, and car importers and dealers are big employers, along with the new hospital at Brakerøya.

Local knowledge: Bragernes and Strømsø each became towns in 1715 and were joined as Drammen in 1811. The name first belonged to the inner fjord and the river, which in Old Norse was Drǫfn, perhaps 'the wavy one' or 'the one with murky water'. For a long time the second meaning fitted far too well. By the 1970s fifteen paper mills and the sewage of 100.000 people went straight into the river, and the main road ran across the town square. In 1986 the councils, the county and the state agreed on a big clean-up, and a competition the year after, 'Drømmen om Drammen', sketched a new centre. Traffic went into tunnels, the riverbanks became parks and promenades, and the water is now clean enough to swim in. The Drammenselva is again one of Norway's best salmon rivers, and in 2003 Drammen won the state's urban environment prize.

Born here: Martin Ødegaard (born 1998) played for the local club Strømsgodset at 15, went on to Real Madrid and later became captain of Arsenal. Speed skater Johann Olav Koss (born 1968) won three golds at the Lillehammer Olympics in 1994, all in world record times.

Visiting: from Bragernes torg it's a few steps to the river. The promenade follows both banks, with sandy beaches in the park at Bragernes, and the white Ypsilon footbridge from 2008 crosses to Papirbredden, the university and library quarter on Strømsø. For the view, drive up through Spiralen, a tunnel that winds six and a half times inside Bragernesåsen to Spiraltoppen. It was blasted out of an old quarry and opened by King Olav V for the town's 150th birthday in 1961. It takes vehicles up to 3,5 metres high and is open from 6 am to 11 pm. You pay to park at the top, where there's a café and forest trails. On a rainy day, Drammensbadet at Marienlyst has nine pools, five of them indoors.

Fact sheet

• People: 126.230 in Drammen, 106.013 in Drammen municipality
• County: Buskerud
• Town since: 1811 (as a trading town)
• Typical industries: health care, with Drammen hospital, car import, sales and repair, building trades such as electricians and plumbers

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).