With Only Numbers and No Street Names, This Norwegian Town is Confusing Tourists

Caitlin Dempsey

Updated:

A Norwegian municipality decided to only give the chalets in a development numbers with no corresponding street names.  What, one can only assume, seemed like an orderly way to address thousands of chalets by the urban planners in charge of this, has turned into a confusing mess.

Trysilfjell Hytteeierforening is a chalet development in Trysil, Norway and is home  to the country’s largest winter sports center with 68 ski lifts.

No Street Names Leads to Confusion

Nrk.no reports that the town decided to clean up road names and addresses a few years ago.  The town decided to adopt a site addressing policy that gave buildings a street number only with no street name.  

The process is actually only intended for “small bays without roads” per Nrk.no.

Instead, the methodology was applied to thousands of cabins.  There are 1,200 cabins Trysilfjellet south and over 6,800 in the entire municipality.  



Free weekly newsletter

Fill out your e-mail address to receive our newsletter!
Email:  

By entering your email address you agree to receive our newsletter and agree with our privacy policy.
You may unsubscribe at any time.



This has resulted in mass confusion among tourists and even emergency responders who are bewildered by signage and maps containing only numbers as they try and find specific cabins.

Map showing cabins labeled only with numbers and no street names.
Cabins in this ski resort are only listed by numbers, causing confusion among tourists and emergency responders. Source: Knut Røsrud / NRK

The cabin association, police, and even the Norwegian Mapping Authority have criticized the move.  Map manager Håkon Dåsnes noted that while, on its face, numbering cabins seems logical, he noted that often cabins are numbered when they are built and not in relation to each other.  

The cabin association is fighting to get the road names reinstated. Jan Sævig, councilor in Trysil municipality, says the council will take up the issue in the fall to determine if addressing this matter should be a priority in 2020.

More:

See Also

Photo of author
About the author
Caitlin Dempsey
Caitlin Dempsey is the editor of Geography Realm and holds a master's degree in Geography from UCLA as well as a Master of Library and Information Science (MLIS) from SJSU.