🇳🇴 Norway · Oslo and the south
Oslo is one of those capitals that surprises travelers. Wedged between the fjord and the forests, it is a city on a human scale where nature is never far away: in a few minutes you go from a cutting-edge museum to a swim in the fjord or a trail among spruce trees. For years it was seen as a quiet, somewhat gray capital, but in recent decades it has turned into one of Europe's most dynamic and architecturally bold cities, with the Opera House that seems to rise out of the water, the new Munch museum and the fjord district (Fjordbyen) as symbols of that new Oslo.
The city combines its Viking past and its history as the capital of a young country (Norway became fully independent in 1905) with a prosperous, green present. It is the birthplace of Edvard Munch and his famous 'The Scream', the city where the Nobel Peace Prize is awarded every year, and a place where Scandinavian design, sustainability and outdoor life set the rhythm. Strolling down Karl Johan avenue, working through the museums of Bygdøy, getting lost in bohemian Grünerløkka or heading up to Holmenkollen are experiences that show its many faces.
This guide covers the essentials of Oslo in a practical, friendly way: what to see, how to use its excellent public transport, how to make the most of the fjord, where to sleep and eat without the bill spiraling (which in Norway is an art), and how to combine the city with the rest of the country. Oslo is the best starting point for falling in love with Norway: a capital small in size but enormous in quality of life, culture and landscape.
Oslo was founded, according to tradition, around the year 1040 by King Harald Hardrada, though recent excavations suggest somewhat earlier settlements; in 2000 the city celebrated its millennium. In the Middle Ages it was a small medieval town in the shadow of Akershus fortress, built around 1300 by King Haakon V, who made Oslo the capital of the Norwegian kingdom. After a devastating fire in 1624, the Danish king Christian IV ordered the town rebuilt next to the fortress and renamed it 'Christiania' (later spelled 'Kristiania') in his honor, a name it would carry for almost three centuries. Through the long union with Denmark and then with Sweden, it was a provincial capital. The real transformation came in the nineteenth century: after the dissolution of the union with Denmark in 1814 and the signing of the Norwegian Constitution (the famous 'Grunnloven' of Eidsvoll), Norway entered a personal union with Sweden and Kristiania grew as a capital, with its university, its Royal Palace and its parliament (the Storting). In 1905 Norway became fully independent and the city recovered its old name, Oslo, in 1925. During the Second World War it was occupied by Nazi Germany (1940-1945). In the postwar years, driven by North Sea oil from the 1970s onward, Norway became one of the richest countries in the world and Oslo flourished. In recent decades it has undergone a spectacular urban renewal around the fjord, with icons such as the Opera House (2008) and the new Munch museum (2021). The full story is on our history page.
Read the full history ↓The capital region and the southern coast: Oslo, the old Christiania where the Constitution of 1814, Ibsen's theater and Munch's art were born; the fjord with its Viking ships; Stavanger and North Sea oil; and the luminous Sørlandet coastline.
Read the history of Oslo and the south →No exact prices: a scale from $ (budget) to $$$$$ (luxury), with 2-3 options per category.
Origins, formation and what the sources say.
Oslo is one of the oldest cities in Scandinavia, even if its name does not sit among the great medieval capitals of Europe. Archaeological excavations in the Gamlebyen area (the 'old town'), at the head of the fjord, show urban settlement going back at least to the year 1000, at the very end of the Viking age. For a long time the founding was credited to King Harald Hardrada (Harald III) around 1048, but later finds showed there was already urban life before that, which is why in 2000 the city celebrated its millennium.
Medieval Oslo grew on the shores at the head of the Oslo fjord (Oslofjord), at the mouth of the river Alna (Alnaelva), a strategic spot for trade and fishing. In the thirteenth century, under King Håkon V Magnusson, the city gained political weight: the monarch moved his residence there and ordered the building of Akershus fortress (around 1300), which still watches over the harbor today and would be decisive in the city's defense for centuries. Oslo thus became one of the seats of Norwegian royal power.
Few visible ruins remain of that medieval city, built mostly in wood — churches and monasteries in Gamlebyen — because fires were a constant threat in Nordic towns built of timber. The name 'Oslo' is of Old Norse origin and its meaning has been much debated: it is usually linked to 'the meadow (lo) below the hill' or to 'the meadow of the gods (Ás)', with no definitive certainty.
The year 1624 marked a breaking point in the city's history. A great fire razed old medieval Oslo, built in wood at the head of the fjord. At the time, Norway was united with Denmark under a single Crown, and the Danish king Christian IV took a drastic decision: instead of rebuilding the city on the same spot, he ordered it raised again on a different site, on the other side of the bay, right under the protection of Akershus fortress.
The new city was laid out on a regular plan of straight streets and orthogonal blocks, in the Renaissance style of the day, and renamed 'Christiania' in the king's own honor. To reduce the risk of future fires, Christian IV pushed for building in brick and stone in the center, though the rule took a while to be fully observed. That planned core is today's Kvadraturen district, whose grid is still recognizable on the map of modern Oslo.
Over the following centuries, Christiania grew as the administrative and commercial center of eastern Norway, always in the shadow of Copenhagen, capital of the Dano-Norwegian kingdom. The spelling of the name changed over time to 'Kristiania' (in 1877 for official documents). The city would only recover its historic name, Oslo, much later, well into the twentieth century, as a symbol of national identity.
The year 1814 changed the city's destiny. After the Napoleonic wars, Denmark — which had been on the losing side — was forced to cede Norway to Sweden under the Treaty of Kiel. But Norwegians did not accept the handover passively: at Eidsvoll, near Christiania, an assembly drafted and signed a constitution of their own on 17 May 1814, one of the most liberal of its time, and proclaimed independence. Although Norway ultimately had to accept a union with Sweden, it kept its Constitution, its Parliament and broad self-government, and Christiania was confirmed as the Norwegian capital.
Through the nineteenth century, now as the capital of an autonomous Norway within the union with Sweden, Christiania grew remarkably. The great institutions of the new state were built: the Royal Palace, the Parliament building (Storting), the University, the National Theatre and the Stock Exchange, and the population multiplied as workers arrived at the factories along the Akerselva river, in the middle of the Industrial Revolution. The city filled with elegant historicist buildings along Karl Johan avenue.
It was also the golden age of Norwegian culture: figures such as the playwright Henrik Ibsen, the composer Edvard Grieg (more closely tied to Bergen, but present in national cultural life) and the painter Edvard Munch, creator of 'The Scream', lived and worked in Christiania and around it. The union with Sweden was dissolved peacefully in 1905, and Norway became a fully independent kingdom, with Christiania as its undisputed capital.
In 1925, now the capital of a fully independent country, the city recovered its old Norse name: Christiania (Kristiania) became Oslo again. It was a gesture loaded with national symbolism, a way of leaving behind the centuries of Danish rule and reconnecting with Norway's medieval roots. The old district at the head of the fjord, where the medieval city had stood, kept the name Gamlebyen ('old town').
During the Second World War, Oslo and all of Norway were occupied by Nazi Germany between 1940 and 1945. King Haakon VII and the government went into exile in London, while the collaborationist regime of Vidkun Quisling took hold at home, his surname becoming a synonym for treason in several languages. The Norwegian resistance carried out famous episodes, such as the sabotage of heavy water production. The liberation, in May 1945, and the king's return are founding moments of contemporary Norway.
In the second half of the twentieth century, the discovery of oil and gas in the North Sea (in the late 1960s) transformed Norway into one of the richest countries in the world, and Oslo modernized at high speed. Today it is a prosperous capital committed to sustainability, with renewed districts such as Aker Brygge and Bjørvika, the latter presided over by the spectacular white marble Opera House (2008), the new Deichman library and the Munch museum. Oslo is also the city where the Nobel Peace Prize is awarded every December.
One thing sets Oslo apart from any other capital in the world: it is the city where the Nobel Peace Prize is awarded. While the other Nobel prizes (Physics, Chemistry, Medicine, Literature and Economics) are given in Stockholm, Sweden, the Peace Prize is awarded in Oslo. This peculiarity goes back to the will of Alfred Nobel himself, the Swedish inventor of dynamite, who in 1895 stipulated that the peace award should be decided by a committee chosen by the Norwegian Parliament.
The exact reasons for that choice have been much debated. One frequent hypothesis holds that, in Nobel's day, Norway and Sweden shared a union and the Norwegian Parliament had a reputation for being less warlike and more inclined to international mediation; other readings stress Nobel's respect for the Norwegian parliamentary tradition. Whatever the motive, the decision made Oslo a symbolic stage for world diplomacy.
The ceremony is held every 10 December — the anniversary of Nobel's death — at Oslo City Hall (Rådhuset), the imposing red brick building facing the harbor. The city is also home to the Nobel Peace Center, a museum devoted to the laureates and the history of the prize. Through the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, the Oslo Accords (1993) between Israelis and Palestinians, negotiated largely in the Norwegian capital, reinforced that image of Oslo as a 'city of peace' and of mediation.