A County Council is the highest governing body of the county municipalities

County municipality (Norway)

A county municipality is a Norwegian public elected body that is responsible for certain public administrative and service tasks within a county. Each county consists of county municipality, with the exception of Oslo, which is both a municipality and a county municipality...

 in Norway

Norway

Norway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic unitary constitutional monarchy whose territory comprises the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Jan Mayen, and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard and Bouvet Island. Norway has a total area of and a population of about 4.9 million...

. The county council sets the scope of the county municipal activity. The council is led by a chairman or county mayor (fylkesordfører). It is common for members of a county council to also sit on municipal councils, but very rare that they also hold legislative (Storting) or other government office, without a leave of absence

Leave of absence

Leave of absence is a term used to describe a period of time that one is to be away from his/her primary job, while maintaining the status of employee...

.

History

The county council has its roots in the Amtsformandskabet created in 1837. Starting in 1964, members of the county councils were appointed by the municipal councils. In 1975, the first general election

Election

An election is a formal decision-making process by which a population chooses an individual to hold public office. Elections have been the usual mechanism by which modern representative democracy operates since the 17th century. Elections may fill offices in the legislature, sometimes in the...

s were held for the county councils.