Union between Sweden and Norway

The union between Sweden and Norway joined the two kingdoms under a single king from 1814 to 1905. It was a personal union, not a single state: each kingdom kept its own constitution, parliament, laws, army and government, but they shared a monarch and a foreign policy, conducted from Stockholm.

During the Napoleonic Wars, Sweden lost Finland to Russia in 1809. Sweden's new crown prince, the French marshal Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte, chosen in 1810, aimed to compensate by acquiring Norway from Denmark, which was allied with Napoleon. After Napoleon's defeat at Leipzig, Bernadotte invaded Denmark, and the Treaty of Kiel of January 1814 forced Denmark to cede Norway to Sweden.

The Norwegians did not accept the treaty. Led by the Danish viceroy, Prince Christian Frederik, an assembly met at Eidsvoll, declared independence and adopted a liberal constitution on 17 May 1814, inspired by the American and French constitutions, with a parliament, the Storting, and separation of powers. Christian Frederik was elected king. Sweden invaded, and after a short war, the Convention of Moss in August 1814 allowed Norway to keep its constitution, with amendments, in a union with Sweden. In November the Storting elected the Swedish king, Charles XIII, as king of Norway.

Bernadotte became king of both realms in 1818 as Charles XIV John, founding the Bernadotte dynasty, which still reigns in Sweden. He tried to strengthen royal power in Norway, but the Storting resisted, and the celebration of 17 May became a symbol of Norwegian independence.

The kingdoms had separate governments; Norway had a prime minister in Stockholm and a government in Christiania, today's Oslo. The king's representative in Norway, the stattholder, was abolished in 1873. Foreign affairs, including consular services, were handled by the Swedish foreign ministry. Trade between the two grew, and a common currency union, with Denmark, was formed in 1873.

In the nineteenth century, Norway developed a strong national culture. Writers such as Henrik Ibsen and Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson, who wrote the national anthem, the composer Edvard Grieg, the folk tale collectors Asbjørnsen and Moe, and the linguist Ivar Aasen, who created a new written language based on rural dialects, now Nynorsk, celebrated Norwegian identity. In 1884, after a constitutional conflict, the king accepted parliamentary government in Norway, with Johan Sverdrup as prime minister. Norway's shipping industry grew into one of the largest in the world.

The final dispute was over Norway's demand for its own consular service to support its shipping. When King Oscar II refused to approve the law in 1905, the Norwegian government resigned, and the king could not form a new one. On 7 June 1905, the Storting declared that the union was dissolved, because the king had ceased to function as king of Norway. A referendum in August showed 368,208 votes for dissolution and only 184 against. Some Swedes wanted war, but after negotiations at Karlstad, Sweden accepted the dissolution peacefully in September 1905. In a second referendum, Norwegians chose to remain a monarchy, and the Storting elected Prince Carl of Denmark, who became King Haakon VII.

The peaceful dissolution of the union is often cited as an example of a peaceful separation of states. Sweden and Norway have remained close neighbours.

Our maps show the union on the 1815, 1878, 1880 and 1900 maps. Its outline, about 790,000 square kilometres at most, is 55 percent in today's Sweden and 45 percent in Norway. Stockholm and Oslo, then Christiania, lie inside it. On the 1914 map, Sweden and Norway appear as separate countries.