The City of Bergen, Norway. The City Council’s vision is for Bergen to be active, attractive climate-smart, green, pedestrian-friendly and compact. Bergen was founded in 1070 and by 1600 it was the largest city in Scandinavia, a Hanseatic trade centre. Today the city has nearly 300 000 inhabitants and functions as one of the regional centres on the west coast of Norway. Bergen lies on latitude 60E 23’ 36’’ and eastern longitude 5E 20’ 6’’. Leading business and industry clusters are energy (oil, gas, renewable), maritime industries, tourism, creative (media, design film and music) and the marine sector.

Bergen has a parliamentary model of government where the Government as an executive body answer to the City Council. The municipality is organized by 7 responsible departments of expertise and approx 30 underlying agencies.