When most people think of Norway, they picture fjords, oil money, and maybe a Viking or two. But there’s another side to the country: the way Norwegians see each other. Reddit user Homesanto made a brilliant map of Norway that labels each region with the stereotypes locals love to joke about—or complain about.
The north gets the reputation of being loud, tough, and not exactly shy with swear words. Calling someone a “horse-cock” might land you a fine in the south, but up north nobody bats an eye. Bergen, Norway’s second-largest city, is still a bit salty about losing its capital status back in the 14th century.
Move inland and the jokes keep rolling. Trøndelag is pictured as a land of handlebar mustaches and “fairytale towns falling apart”—not really towns, just log houses collapsing slowly in the woods. In Telemark, bunads (traditional costumes) are still a big deal. Some people pay thousands for one, and you can be sure they’ll remind you of it whenever someone else shows up in a machine-made version.
The coastline is full of digs too. Nordland gets described as a place where kids used to head straight from school to work in the fisheries. Further south, entire villages are frozen in the style of 1981—moccasins, mullets, and leather vests included. And then there’s the unforgettable note about Russians, leaky submarines, and giant crabs off the coast… which of course Moscow insists is all a coincidence.
Some stereotypes hit a little closer to home. Røst, one of the Lofoten islands, is called out as the place where “the loneliest man in Norway” lives—and apparently he likes it that way. The endless summer daylight of the midnight sun is summed up with a warning: it sounds magical until you’ve lived through it, at which point it’s just exhausting. And yes, lutefisk really does pile up in certain regions when the Midwest can’t take any more of it.
History sneaks into the map too. Finnmark is marked “uninhabited since 1944,” when retreating German forces torched the county. The south coast is teased for speaking a dialect that sounds more like Danish than Norwegian. And along the Russian border, Norway still keeps one of its few proper military checkpoints—a reminder that old frontiers don’t disappear overnight.
And then there’s the local color that Norwegians instantly recognize. In Møre og Romsdal, debates over who deserves the next bridge across the fjord can drag on for years. People in Sunnmøre are famously frugal, and if you’ve ever been offered a cup of karsk – coffee with a shot of moonshine—you’ll know those jokes have some truth in them.
This map doesn’t just trace coastlines and counties. It hints at the small dramas and humor that shape everyday life. From regional pride to old jokes that never die, it’s these details that make Norway feel alive on the page.
I love this =) Thanks for the smile