There are 16 statistical metropolitan areas in Norway, of which six count as "Greater City Regions" (Storbyregioner) and ten as "City Regions" (Byregioner). The classification comes from Storbymeldingen (The Greater City Report) from the Norwegian Ministry of Local Government and Regional Development. This report was composed in 2002–2003 to create a coherent policy for the development of metropolitan areas within Norwegian society. It was presented by then Minister of Local Government and Regional Development, Erna Solberg on 12 March 2003. The Greater City Regions contain cities with numbers of inhabitants ranging from around 60,000 to 1.4 million, while the City Regions range from around 45 to 175 thousand. This is out of a national population of around 5.2 million citizens.
The three most populous regions are the Greater Oslo Region, the Greater Bergen Region, and the Greater Stavanger Region.
Greater City Regions Six Norwegian cities are considered Greater Cities (Storbyer). This classification is the result of an overall evaluation of these cities' population and their importance as regional centres. The six cities are Oslo, Bergen, Trondheim, Stavanger, Kristiansand and Tromsø. According to Storbymeldingen, these regions contained the following number of municipalities and inhabitants as of 1 July 2009 (the right-hand column shows the number of inhabitants in the main city, within the boundaries of its municipality): Greater City Region Municipalities Inhabitantsin region 2010 Inhabitantsin region 2030 Inhabitantsin municipality 2010 Greater Oslo Region461,422,4431,835,191590 041 Greater Bergen Region14412,156 478,926275,112 Greater Stavanger Region13321,412 403,907122,602 Trondheim Region11261,759301,966169,343 Kristiansand Region10155,648185,05180,748 Tromsø Region275,57083,86970,818
City Regions In addition to these six regions, there are ten lesser regions referred to as City Regions (Byregioner). The City Regions of Drammen and Moss are for many purposes considered part of the Greater Oslo Region, bringing the number down to eight. The City Regions, according to the same report, are the following (these regions do not all contain one, main city, so here this category is not included): City Region Municipalities Inhabitants in 2009 Inhabitantsin 2030 Mjøsa Cities10180,161201,829 Drammen Region8151,769190,055 Lower Glomma Region4143,992173,620 Haugesund Region10128,797156,830 Tønsberg Region7114,868140,742 Grenland5123,075159,312 Larvik/Sandefjord Region387,531100,897 Ålesund Region982,16597,604 Moss Region455,29066,887 Bodø Region348,87860,557
See also Counties of Norway List of municipalities of Norway List of towns and cities in Norway Regions of Norway
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