Constitution of Norway
constitution
The Constitution of Norway (complete name: The Constitution of the Kingdom of Norway; Danish: Kongeriget Norges Grundlov; Norwegian Bokmål: Kongeriket Norges Grunnlov; Norwegian Nynorsk: Kongeriket Noregs Grunnlov) was adopted on 16 May and signed on 17 May 1814 by the Norwegian Constituent Assembly at Eidsvoll. The latter date is the National Day of Norway; it marks the establishment of the constitution.
It is the fourth oldest written single-document national constitution in Europe after the Constitution of Poland, the French constitution of 1791, and the Spanish Constitution of 1812. The document is also the second oldest working national constitution in the world, after the Constitution of the United States. In May 2014, the Storting passed the most substantial changes since 1814, particularly by including paragraphs on human rights.
History
Writing the constitution
Until 1814, Norway was part of the Kingdom of Denmark–Norway. Following the defeat of Napoleon's troops at the Battle of Leipzig in October 1813, the Treaty of Kiel of January 1814 ceded Norway to Sweden. In response, the Crown Prince of Denmark–Norway and resident viceroy in Norway, Christian Frederik, started a Norwegian independence movement. The most likely goal of the young Crown Prince was reunification with Denmark. His initiative was successful, and a national assembly at Eidsvoll Manor was called.
“Constitution of Norway” enters the record as constitution. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Constitution, Norway and constitution can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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The record creator and administrative purpose are central evidence, because official documentation reflects both action and institutional priorities. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 30, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q642673. VIAF identifies the subject as 176600460. The Library of Congress control number is n79097496. None of the 3 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1814, 1791, 1812 and 2014.
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This entry incorporates text from “Constitution of Norway” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.