World Heritage Sites in Norway

Norwegian sites on the List

The UNESCO World Heritage List includes over a thousand cultural and natural properties. Read about them on the main page.

Norway has eight properties on the list and you find them in the bullet list below. Hyperlinks lead to UNESCO’s article. Sandalsand has been to all, and if you roll down this page you will find the articles.

This page is part of a collection from Norway. It includes photos and videos from road trips, hikes and visits to places all over the country.

Cultural sites

• Bryggen (1979)
• Urnes Stave Church (1979)
• Røros Mining Town and the Circumference (1980)
• Rjukan-Notodden Industrial Heritage Site (2015)
• Rock Art of Alta (1985)
• Struve Geodetic Arc (2005)
• Vegaøyan – The Vega Archipelago (2004)

Natural sites

• West Norwegian Fjords – Geirangerfjord and Nærøyfjord (2005)

Norwegian sites on the tentative list

UNESCO operates a second list as well, called the Tentative List. It consists of properties submitted by a country to the UNESCO committee for evaluation. The evaluation process may take years, as indicated by the six Norwegian proposals below. (Links lead to UNESCO.)

• The Laponian Area – Tysfjord, the fjord of Hellemobotn and Rago (extension) (2002)
• The Lofoten islands (2002)
• Svalbard Archipelago (2007)
• Islands of Jan Mayen and Bouvet as parts of a serial transnational nomination of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge system (2007)
• Viking monuments and sites / Vestfold Ship Burials and Hyllestad Quernstone Quarries (2011)

HELMER: But this is disgraceful. Is this the way you neglect your most sacred duties?
NORA: What do you consider is my most sacred duty?
HELMER: Do I have to tell you that? Isn’t it your duty to your husband and children?
NORA: I have another duty, just as sacred.
HELMER: You can’t have. What duty do you mean?
NORA: My duty to myself.
(Henrik Ibsen, Norwegian writer. Quote from “A Doll’s House”)

The writers who reject tendentiousness and purpose in their work are the very ones who display it in every word they write. I could draw countless examples from the history of literature to show that the more a writer clamours for spiritual freedom, the more tendentious his work is liable to be. (Bjornstjerne Bjornson, Norwegian writer)