Oslo

Oslo lies at the very end of the Oslofjord, with the centre wrapped around two bays, Pipervika and Bjørvika. Behind it the land climbs into forest, and two-thirds of the municipality is woods and lakes. About 729.000 people live in the city and over a million in the urban area. As the capital it's an office town, heavy on IT consultancies, banks and the head offices of unions, trade bodies and charities.

In South Sámi the city is Oslove, official since 2023. The Norse name was Ósló, and the most common explanation is 'the meadow of the gods by the water', the water being the river Alna or the fjord.

Local knowledge: the sagas say King Harald Hardråde founded a market town here around 1050, though digs show town houses from about the year 1000. In 1624 a fire burned for three days, and King Christian IV decided the old town was not to be rebuilt. He laid out a grid of straight streets under the walls of Akershus Fortress, ordered the townspeople to move there and gave the new town his own name, Christiania. They went slowly and grudgingly, and for a hundred years the town hardly grew. Later spelled Kristiania, it got its old name back on 1 January 1925.

Born here: Sonja Henie (1912–1969) won three Olympic golds and ten world titles in a row in figure skating, then became a Hollywood film star. Crime writer Jo Nesbø (born 1960) moved to Molde as a boy, and his novels about detective Harry Hole are translated into more than 40 languages.

Visiting: the pin points to Oslo Visitor Centre, the tourist information in Østbanehallen at the Central Station, open all year. A few minutes away, the Opera House slopes its white marble roof down to the ground by the water, and you can walk right up it. Next door, MUNCH holds the biggest collection of Edvard Munch's work, a good choice on a rainy day, like the pools at Tøyenbadet. Akershus Fortress, begun around 1300, is a short walk along the harbour. In Frogner Park, Vigeland's 214 sculptures lead up to the 17-metre Monolith, cut from one block of granite. From spring to autumn a ferry runs from Aker Brygge to the museums on Bygdøy, and Grünerløkka and Holmenkollen are worth a day of their own. The camper is best left at a campsite: Topcamp Bogstad by Nordmarka is open all year, half an hour from town by bus, and Topcamp Ekeberg, mid-May to mid-September, has buses every 15 minutes. For a walk in the woods there's Østmarka National Park, and our own depot, Arctic Campers Oslo, is up by the airport.

Fact sheet

• Other official names: Oslove (South Sámi)
• People: 1.119.478 in Oslo, 728.714 in Oslo municipality
• County: Oslo
• Town since: about 1050
• Typical industries: IT consultancy and programming, head offices of unions, trade bodies and charities, banking, finance and insurance

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).