Fredrikstad

Fredrikstad exists because of a fire. Sarpsborg, founded by Olav the Holy in 1016 about 15 km up the Glomma, was burned to the ground by the Swedes during the Northern Seven Years' War, and King Frederick II ordered a new town built at the river mouth. The new town was founded in 1567 on the east bank, at first as a re-founding of Sarpsborg; the name Fredrikstad first appears in a letter from the king in 1569. Some citizens stayed behind and rebuilt Sarpsborg, which regained its town status in 1839.

Facing Sweden across the border, the town was fortified: a temporary fortification of 1644–45 was made permanent when, between 1663 and 1666, the officer Willem Coucheron and his son built the low earth ramparts and wide moat that still surround the Old Town. Outworks followed over the next decades, among them Isegran, where an earl had built a fort in the late 13th century, and Kongsten fort, founded in 1685. The fortress was attacked only once, in 1814, when it capitulated to the Swedish army on 4 August; on 15 August Sweden concluded the armistice known as the Convention of Moss in Fredrikstad. In 1735 a suburb, Vestsiden, was founded across the river, and it became the heart of the modern city.

From the 1840s timber exports made Fredrikstad rich, with large sawmills along the river. When they declined in the early 1900s the city turned to industry, above all the great Fredrikstad Mekaniske Verksted shipyard, which closed in 1988. The fortress was closed in 1903 but kept as a garrison. The Fredrikstad Bridge opened in 1957, the surrounding rural municipalities were merged into the city in 1964 and 1994, and the city hosted the Tall Ships' Races in 2005 and 2019.

The Old Town is Fredrikstad's pride: inside the ramparts, the old streets, rebuilt after a great fire in 1764, hold cafés and pubs among the houses, the city museum in the old military store, and Kongsten fort just outside the walls. Children run on the grass ramparts and climb the old cannons, and a model railway centre in the Old Town claims to be the largest of its kind in Scandinavia.

Football is the other passion. Fredrikstad FK, one of the most successful clubs in Norwegian football history, plays at the stadium on the old shipyard site at Værste, and the national team manager Egil Olsen was born here. There is also an American football team, the Fredrikstad Eagles.

Life turns towards the water in summer. Glommafestivalen, Østfold's largest and oldest festival, brings concerts and maritime activities to the river, the riverwalk fills with people eating and drinking by the water, and boats head out to the islands of Hvaler and the marine national park beyond.

Fredrikstad Municipality had about 86,000 people at the end of 2024, and together with neighbouring Sarpsborg, about 15 km upstream, it forms Norway's fifth-largest urban area, with about 146,000 people across the two municipalities. The city centre is on the west bank of the Glomma, with suburbs spreading over the former rural municipalities of Glemmen, Borge, Onsøy, Kråkerøy and Rolvsøy.

The sawmills and the shipyard that built the city have gone, and the main industries today are chemical plants and other light industry, alongside services and retail. The old shipyard area at Værste has been turned into the city's technology quarter.

Ordinary life centres on the shopping streets and the Torvbyen centre on the west bank, the small river ferry that crosses to the Old Town, and summer evenings by the water. The afternoon traffic rush on the roads into town is the closest the city comes to big-city stress.

Fredrikstad sits on the coast, and fish and seafood feature in eating out, from the seafood restaurant on the old shipyard waterfront to the restaurants of the riverwalk. Home cooking is that of eastern Norway: kjøttkaker, meat patties of ground beef and onion in brown sauce; fårikål, the mutton and cabbage stew counted as the national dish, in autumn; and smørbrød, open sandwiches with several toppings, at lunch. Brunost, the sweet brown cheese made from caramelised whey, is eaten with bread.

The riverwalk on the west bank is the city's main place to eat and drink, with restaurants and bars along the water that are busiest on sunny summer evenings, and the city centre adds Turkish, Indian and sushi restaurants. Inside the Old Town, cafés serve cocoa and cinnamon buns, a traditional restaurant sits among the old houses, and pubs pour craft beer.

To drink, akevitt, flavoured with caraway or dill, is the traditional Norwegian spirit, and in summer people drink beer in the sunshine at the bars of the riverwalk.