Oslo
Oslo (called Christiania from 1624 to 1878, and Kristiania from 1878 to 1924) is the capital and largest city of Norway. It is also a municipality and a county of its own. It is the third-largest Scandinavian city, after Copenhagen and Stockholm, and it forms the third-largest urban area in the region, after Copenhagen and Stockholm. It is arguably the world's most expensive city in which to live.
The city of Oslo was established as a municipality on 3 January 1838 (see formannskapsdistrikt). It was separated from the county of Akershus as a county of its own in 1842. The rural municipality of Aker was merged with Oslo on 1 January 1948 (and then transferred from Akershus county to Oslo county). Furthermore, Oslo shares several important functions with Akershus county.
The population of the city proper is 560,484 (as of January 1, 2008).[2] The urban area extends into the surrounding county of Akershus, its agglomeration totaling 856,915,[3] and its metropolitan area, also referred to as the Greater Oslo region (Stor-Osloregionen) and which extends beyond the city boundaries, has an estimated population of 1,121,020 citizens (2005) and a land area of 6,920 km² (2,670 sq mi) [2]. In the entire Inner Oslo Fjord Region, there is a total population of about 1.3 million. About 50% of the population of Norway lives within a radius of 120 kilometres (75 mi) of downtown Oslo. The city of Oslo has a current annual growth exceeding 10,000, which makes it one of the fastest growing cities in Europe.
The article above is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Oslo".