Lillehammer

Lillehammer climbs the hillside at the north end of Mjøsa, where the little river Mesna tumbles through the old centre on its way down to the lake. Storgata, the pedestrian street, is lined with two-storey wooden houses from the late 1800s, many with bay windows, and has been called the longest small-town street in Norway. High on the hill to the east you see the two ski jumps of Lysgårdsbakken.

With 22.370 people it's the main town of Gudbrandsdalen, with the hospital, a university and the state administrator for Innlandet. It's a UNESCO City of Literature too, and Sigrid Undset's home, Bjerkebæk, is open to visitors.

Local knowledge: the name comes from the farm Hamar, Old Norse hamarr, a rocky hill. To tell it apart from the town of Hamar further down the lake, people called it little Hamar. Lillehammer became a kjøpstad in 1827, with just 50 people inside the town limits. The day that changed it most came in September 1988, when the IOC gave this small town the 1994 Winter Olympics. The opening ceremony in February 1994 was held in the arena below the new ski jumps. Ole Gunnar Fidjestøl was meant to carry the Olympic flame down the hill, but he broke an arm in a practice jump, so Stein Gruben jumped with the torch instead, and Crown Prince Haakon lit the flame. About 110.000 people stood along the track for the men's relay and watched Italy beat Norway by 0,4 seconds. Norway still won more medals than anyone, 26 in all.

Born here: archaeologist Anne Stine Ingstad (1918–1997) led the digs at L'Anse aux Meadows in Newfoundland in the 1960s, which proved that Norse people reached America around the year 1000. Cross-country skier Brit Pettersen (born 1961) won Olympic gold in the relay in Sarajevo in 1984.

Visiting: the pin is on Stortorget, by Lillehammer Kunstmuseum in the centre. Up the hill is Maihaugen, started by Anders Sandvig, a dentist who travelled the valley and bought up old farm things before collectors took them away. Maihaugen opened in 1904 and now has over 200 houses, among them Garmo stave church from the 1200s. On a rainy day, stay for the Norwegian Olympic Museum in Maihaugen's main building, or swim at Jorekstad Fritidsbad. Walk or take the chairlift up Lysgårdsbakken, where the tower of the big jump looks out over town and lake. In summer the paddle steamer Skibladner, on Mjøsa since 1856, sails up to Lillehammer two days a week and docks at Vingnes on the west side. The nearest campsite in our guide is Lillehammer Camping.

Fact sheet

• People: 22.370 in Lillehammer, 29.669 in Lillehammer municipality
• County: Innlandet
• Town since: 1827 (as a trading town)
• Typical industries: the hospitals (Sykehuset Innlandet and the rheumatism hospital), regional government offices, like the state administrator for Innlandet, shops

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).