Top 10 Castles in Norway
Norway's castle landscape is shaped by its maritime geography: the fjords that penetrate deep into the country's interior, the island-studded coastline, and the harbours that commanded the North Sea and Baltic trade routes. The medieval Norwegian state built its fortifications to control these passages, and the tradition continued through the Danish-Norwegian union of the 15th-19th centuries into the modern period. The result is a relatively small number of major fortifications of considerable quality. Find them on the map.
1. Akershus Fortress, Oslo
Akershus, on a promontory above the Oslo Fjord in the centre of Norway's capital, has been the primary royal fortress of Norway since it was built from around 1300 by Haakon V Magnusson. The original medieval castle was rebuilt as a Renaissance palace by Christian IV of Denmark-Norway from 1637. The fortress was never captured; it served as the last stronghold of Norwegian resistance during the German occupation in 1940. The Royal Norwegian Mausoleum is within the fortress chapel; the Norwegian Resistance Museum occupies a building within the grounds.
2. Bergenhus Fortress, Bergen
Bergenhus, at the entrance to the Bergen harbour, was the medieval seat of Norwegian royal power on the west coast. Haakon's Hall — Håkonshallen — built by Haakon IV Haakonsson from 1247-61, is the best-preserved medieval royal hall in Scandinavia. The Rosenkrantz Tower, built in the 1560s by Erik Rosenkrantz on earlier medieval foundations, is a characteristic Renaissance defensive tower of considerable scale.
3. Oscarsborg Fortress, Drøbak
Oscarsborg, on an island in the Oslofjord at the narrows of Drøbak, is famous for one event: on 9 April 1940, the fortress's guns sank the German heavy cruiser Blücher as it entered the fjord in the opening hours of the German invasion of Norway. The sinking delayed the German capture of Oslo by several hours, allowing the Norwegian royal family and government to evacuate. The fortress is open to visitors; the torpedo battery that contributed to the sinking is preserved.
4. Steinvikholm Castle, Trøndelag
Steinvikholm, on a small island in the Steinvikfjord in Trøndelag, was built by Archbishop Olav Engelbrektsson from 1525 as the seat of the Norwegian Archbishop during the crisis of the Reformation. The Archbishop, the last Catholic Archbishop of Nidaros, was attempting to maintain ecclesiastical independence from the Danish crown; Steinvikholm was his power base during the failed Catholic resistance to the Reformation. He fled to the Netherlands in 1537; the castle was subsequently used as a Danish royal fortress.
5. Kongsvinger Fortress, Hedmark
Kongsvinger, above the Glomma river near the Swedish border in Hedmark, was built from 1681 as a fortress to control the principal route between Sweden and Norway. The star-shaped fortification plan is a classic Baroque fortress design; the views from the ramparts over the Glomma valley are among the best in eastern Norway.
6. Fredriksten Fortress, Halden
Fredriksten, above the border town of Halden in Østfold, was the Norwegian fortress that successfully resisted two Swedish sieges in 1716 and 1718. During the second siege, the Swedish king Charles XII — one of the most militarily successful monarchs of his age — was killed by a bullet outside Fredriksten's walls, ending the Great Northern War and the Swedish Empire's dominance of the Baltic.
7. Bohus Fortress, Kungälv (formerly Norwegian)
Bohus, at the confluence of the Göta and Nordre rivers near what is now Kungälv in Sweden, was a Norwegian royal fortress from 1308 until it passed to Sweden in 1658. The ruins, on an island in the river, are among the largest medieval fortress remains in Scandinavia. The fortress was never taken during its 350 years of Norwegian ownership.
8. Varberg Fortress, (formerly Norwegian territory)
Varberg, on the Kattegat coast in what is now Sweden, was a key Norwegian administrative fortress before the Treaty of Roskilde (1658) transferred all the eastern Norwegian territories — Bohuslän, Jämtland, Trondheim — to Sweden. The fortress holds a peculiar exhibit: the preserved bog body of a medieval man found nearby, fully clothed, one of the best-preserved medieval mummies in the world.
9. Tunsberghus Ruins, Tønsberg
Tønsberg, south of Oslo, was one of medieval Norway's most important cities. The hilltop fortress of Tunsberghus, now a ruin on the central hill of the town, was a major royal and ecclesiastical fortress from the 13th century. The remains include sections of the curtain wall and a round tower.
10. Munkeliv Abbey Fortress, Bergen
Munkeliv, on the Nordnes peninsula in Bergen, was both a Benedictine monastery and a defended royal residence. The ruins, now largely submerged under later urban development, were a significant complex in medieval Bergen; excavations have traced the perimeter walls and the abbey church.
Explore on the map
Norway's fortress landscape — concentrated in the Oslo Fjord region and around Bergen but extending north along the coast — is on the interactive map. The fjord geography makes water-based approaches to these sites a logical option.