Return to The 1801 Census

1. THE BACKGROUND

On 28 November 1800 a royal decree ordered that a census should be held in Denmark, Norway and Iceland on 1 February 1801. The result was the first census to be held in Norway, where the name and other information were collected for each person.

Most Norwegian parishes have preserved from the years 1663- 66 two, three or more lists of the male population. While the first of these lists generally includes only males over the age of 12, the latest, from 1665- 66, includes all males. Women were only included when they were leaseholders or freeholders of farms. Moreover, the censuses covered only the country districts and did not include urban municipalities. In 1701 a new male census was established for the rural population in Norway. As in the censuses between 1663- 66 the place of residence, name and age were registered. This time only boys under the age of one were excluded. But while the censuses from the 1660s covered the whole country, with few exceptions the census of 1701 covered only Northern Norway, Trøndelag, Western Norway and parts of Agder.

The first real census was carried out in 1769, when for the first time women were counted. Only professional military persons were excepted. Contrary to the earlier censuses, this census did not include information on individuals, only summary data on age, sex and profession, at the parish level.

In 1787, a census by name was carried out in Denmark. In Norway only some traces of a similar undertaking have been found. Therefore the census of 1 February 1801 was the first census by name in Norway, and as such it constitutes the primary source on Norwegian demographic and social history in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Not until 1865 was this form of census regularly used, as the censuses held between 1801 and 1865 (namely, 1815, 1825, 1835, 1845 and 1855) only gave summary information for most rural and urban areas.

The reason why a census was held in 1801 is not clear. That the authorities had become interested in the population is, however, clear from the measures taken in 1769 and 1787. Since the 1801 census closely followed the Danish Census of 1787 in its form, it is natural to assume it was a development from the latter. The opening of a new century probably played a considerable role, since both England and France held censuses in 1801.

2. EXECUTION OF THE CENSUS AND THE CENSUS DATA

2.1. Collection of the data
The actual work of the census was carried out in two different ways; the first covered all the towns, and the mines and factories that were reckoned under the Mining Administration (Oberbergamt) at Kongsberg. For these areas the Supervisors (rodemeistrar) prepared the lists under the guidance of the Magistrates (town councils). After they had checked the lists for mistakes and omissions, the Magistrates then sent them on to the Diocesan Prefect (stiftamtmann). But in the rural districts, where some 90 per cent of the population lived, the counting was done by the Parish Priests (sokneprestar). Although they were able to seek help from their extons and schoolteachers, it is clear from the lists that they largely did the work themselves. From the priests the lists travelled upwards through several levels of control; first to the Dean (prost), then to the County Prefect (amtmann) and from him to the Diocesan Prefect who in this case consulted with the Bishop. Thereafter all the census data together with any relevant comments was sent on to the Treasury in Copenhagen.

Both the Supervisors and the Parish Priests were to use printed forms (p. 12) that were adapted to provide two different ways of listing the dwelling; street- and housenumber in the towns and in the Danish villages, or name of the farm (gard) in the country. The forms also described two different counting procedures. The Supervisors were to go from house to house in their small districts (rodar) gathering the information from the heads of each family. But since the priests were required only to question the head of the household after the Sunday Service, it was reckoned their work would take several weeks. However, it has to be emphasized that in both cases the information was not collected directly from each individual by the census taker, but via an intermediary, the family head.

The Census was to take place on 1 February 1801. However, since there were good grounds for believing that the work could not be finished that day, the census takers received further intructions. Thus it was decreed that they should not count children born after 1 February, but should include those who were alive on the census day even if they died soon after. However, nothing comparable was said on how travellers should be dealt with.

2. 2. Home and Residence
The instructions had the following to say on who should be counted; "In the counting, each and everyone, of whatever condition, whether indigenous or foreign, is to be included under the place where on the said First of February (the chosen day) they are living in the Kingdoms, and so are the indigenous, who might be absent on travel, but about whom is known that they have their usual place of residence here, or intend to return to settle down here." By "the usual place of residence" was meant the house in which one normally slept. In consequence, people in Norway were not to be registered at the place they happened to be on 1 February 1801, but where they had their home.

The lists show that generally sailors, including those overseas, were included under their homes; as were people who were travelling. But since one also finds people named who "resided" abroad, for example some students in Copenhagen, there seems in fact to have been no clear definition of "the usual place of residence". Thus, domestic servants were registered in the place where they worked, although their residence was temporary. Soldiers in garrisons and fortresses, who were counted by the military authorities, were treated in rather the same way.

But if most Norwegians, who were only temporarily absent, were counted under their usual residence, the same principle did not bring about exclusion of those foreigners who were only temporarily resident in Norway. Thus, the census of 1801, without an exhaustive definition of "usual residence", registered both the de jure Norwegian population and the de facto population of foreigners in the country.

This uncertainty over the meaning of "residence" must have created problems in the counting of the nomadic section of the Lappish people. But the lists say little on how the difficulty was resolved. In some parishes the Lapps are listed separately, in others not. Thus the censue does not provide systematic information on ethnic identity. The Lapps who were listed separately were usually those who herded reindeer. At least until further research is undertaken, it is probably reasonable to say that the Lapps like the Norwegians were registered where the priests considered their usual residence to be.

The definition of home units in the census appears not to follow a fixed plan. In the towns houses are often the smallest identifiable unit. In the country the priests largely followed the divisions of tax- bearing farms or clusters of farms (matrikkelgardar), but often added the name of each particular dwelling.

2.3. Age
Today age is counted in completed years,that is the age reachedat the last birthday. However, the instructions for the 1801 Census declared, "that the current, not the completed year, shall be taken", which means that the age should be given as for the next birthday. How widespread this method of reckoning age was in about 1800 is unknown, but it is far from unlikely that different methods of reckoning age were in fact employed. All the tables in this book follow the ages as given in the original materials from 1801.

It is also clear from the lists that the information on age was partially "rounded off". For adults and old people one frequently finds accumulation of ages that end in zero or an even number. This means that the data on age must be regarded as only approximate. Neither is it known if these variations in the data on age are the same for all parts of the country.

2.4. Marital status
In contrast to the great variation in the reckoning of age, there were basically only three types of marital status, unmarried, married and widowed. And since this was information that could easily be obtained, it can be considered reliable. The same point applies to the number of marriages recorded for any one married or widowed individual; the number seldom exceeds two or three.

One slight confusion in this simple scheme is caused by 240 separated and 172 divorced persons. In the tables to this book, they are classified as being married for the first time.

2.5. Family and Household
The Decree laid down that each individual should be recorded in accordance to his or her "place in the house, whether husband, wife, child, relative (giving the relationship), servant, tenant, lodger, someone quartered, etc.". This means that each individual was situated within a unit, called family in the census, with a defined relationship to the head of the family. Occasionally, a single woman will appear as the head of a family. Therefore, since the family often comprises more than parents and children - the nuclear family - and rather should be regarded as a group of individuals living together, it is best notto use the term family. Here we have used household (husstand, hushald).

We do not know the principles which guided the census takers in 1801 in locating individuals within households. One principle must have been all persons living in the same house. Less certain is it whether these individuals always shared the same living expenses, a principle frequently used to define a household today. Thus in 1801, some of the retired farmers (kårfolk) were listed as independent householders, while others were listed as members of other households. This may well express a difference in the position of some retired farmers, both economically and as to where they lived; it may, however, just as well reflect uncertainty as to definition. Furthermore, lodgers who generally provided their own food, were often counted as members of the larger households. Thus, there are indications that the tellers of 1801 were confused as to what "family" or household actually meant.

The census also gives much information on a form of houshold that can be characterized as collective, namely a large group of individuals living together in an institution, such as hospital, poorhouse, prison or military establishment. But because the census predominantly listed people according to usual or legal residence (see above, b.), the most common form of a collective group, a ship's crew, does not appear at all.

2.6. Occupation and Status
About the collection of information on employment, the instructions have the following to say; "An individual's title, position, business, trade or mode of livelihood, or whatever the means whereby he lives, must likewise be recorded; in like manner, whether they are disabled or live from charity. Special attention should be given to the rural cottars, as to whether they practise agriculture or some other form of livelihood." This instruction in fact requires two different types of information; an individual's position or status, and what he actually made his livelihood from. It is clear that this implicit distinction has resulted in much confusion and lack of system in the census- lists.

Practically, the instruction is well followed when, for example, a farmer is listed as "peasant, farmer and freeholder" ("Bonde, Gaardbruger og Selveier"). This phrase provides information on status, peasant, and source of livelihood, working of a freehold farm. But precision is lacking in regard to the other large group, the cottars (husmenn). In Norway this term implies a particular form of renting a small piece of land or a building- plot. Although cottars with land naturally lived partly from it, generally they had other forms of income. And the latter was necessarily the case for those cottars who had no land. Nevertheless, most tellers contented themselves with using the term, cottar (with or without land), irrespective of other sources of livelihood. Equally, a minor office or function, such as assistant to the p.iest or chief constable, did not give a living wage, but nevertheless appear in the function for employment. It is rather similar with military ranks, particularly the lower ones; the rank is simply a title, its holder will in peacetime often derivehis livelihood from elsewhere. This is always the case for conscript soldiers and sailors.

The next problem is the reverse of this; what was recorded when an individual had more than one source of income? Different tellers approached this problem in different ways. Some tried to list the additional sources of income, others simply noted the main form of employment, which in fact almost always describes status. Thus it transpires that the common combination of farmer and fisherman is, in som parishes, recorded as "peasant, farmer and fisherman", while in others it appears as only "peasant and farmer". It is therefore reasonable to assume that the commonest forms of secondary employment, which quite often contributed most to a person's livelihood, are under- registered in the census. Equally under- registered is the fact that individuals could have more than one form of secondary employment, for only rarely are more than two types of employment given in the lists.

Some of the information about employment must be sought for in the columns on the individual's position within the household. This is where servants are listed, since to be a servant was considered more as a position within the houshold than as an occupation. This is even more the case with housewives and children living at home, since they were regarded as dependents of the head of the household, even although they must have substantially contributed towards the householdls income. In this respect, many of the non- family members of the household were probably in the same position as the wife and older children. However, it is obviously very difficult to draw a clear distinction between those who were economically active and those who were not within the household. But some of those who were either wholly or partly dependent upon persons outside the household, or on public charities, are included.

2.7. The administrative Divisions
As laid down in the Census Decree, the actual work of the census was carried out with the towns and parishes as the administrative divisions. It would therefore be natural to use these as the base units in the statistical presentation here; in reality the problem is not so simple.

First of all it seems that by far the majority of the parish priests carried out the counting by wards (sokn), so that the latter is in fact the smallest administrative unit. It is only in Eastern Norway that the majority of parishes are not listed by their wards. Despite these exceptions, we have therefore decided to use the ward divisions as our base unit in this volume, and to list the wards even in those parishes where the priests omitted them.

The other difficulty arises when one seeks to isolate the urban population. Thus we have administratively autonomous towns (kjøpstad), whose privileges, both economic and administrative, are defined by law; of these the diocesan towns, Kristiania (Oslo), Kristiansand, Bergen and Trondheim were in a class of their own, in part because of their size, in part because they were administrative centres. But certain small towns (ladestad) which had their own defined economic and administrative status should also be regarded as urban centres. But in the Census these latter are notlisted as towns but with the rural parishes to which they belonged. However, these small towns are usually so clearly listed that it is not difficult to isolate them from their parishes and add them to major towns. And this is, in fact, the way figures for the urban population have been established. Since both the major towns and the smaller ones are urban in the modern sense, namely by density of dwellings and special economic functions, this procedure seems satisfactory.

We have here used the boundaries of the various administrative divisions as they were in 1801. However one cannot automatically assume that the boundaries of the former parishes were the same as those of our present- day communes. To emphasize this point we have given the names of all the divisions exactly as they were written in the census lists, thus vividly reflecting the period's confusion in language and spelling and showing also the difference from the forms used today. But ifthe reader can accept the small variations, it is possible to make the transition from the counties of 1801 (called amt) to the counties of today (called fylke). In the tables Jarlsberg and Larvik are grouped together to equal Vestfold. In the Census Trondhjem was treated as one county, although here it is divided into south and north, as is the two modern Trøndelag counties. However, this has not been done with Finnmarken, which equals the modern counties of Troms and Finnmark.

Finally, we have made use of a division in this volume that is not found in the original census, namely the division of the whole country into five regions. Thus Austlandet are the counties up to and including Bratsberg (Telemark); Agder equals the two counties of Nedenes and Lister with Mandal (Aust-Agder and Vest-Agder today); Vestlandet includes four counties from Stavanger (Rogaland) up to Romsdal (Møre og Romsdal); Trøndelag the two Trondhjem (Trøndelag) counties and Nord-Norge consists of the counties of Nordland and Finnmarken.

2.8. The Problem of Holt- Dypvåg
Even if the Census appears to be of high quality, it would be unreasonable to expect an absolutely comprehensive geographical coverage. It is quite clear that certain farms are missing and it omissions will come to light. But one major problem is that all the Census lists for two parishes are lost, namely Holt and Dypvag, both situated in the county of Nedenes (Aust-Agder) and the diocese of Kristiansand. However, in 1826 Jens Kraft said in his Topograhical- statistical Description of Norway that the 1801 census count for Holt was 2 584 and for Dybvåg 1 999, while in an official statistical publication of 1874, which was based on a reworking of the material from the 1820s (see below), the population of Holt Rural District was given as 2 324 and as 260 for the small town of Tvedestrand. It is thus certain that the lists still existed in the 1820s.

The loss of the lists at some later date has meant that we have had to leave out the 4 583 people of Holt and Dypvåg from all our tables. Although this omission is duly noted in the figures for the population of Nedenes, Agder and for the kingdom as a whole, it obviously effects all the calculations. But is it possible to gain any idea of how this omission affects the value of the different tables? At a rough estimate the two parishes had between 800 and 900 households. In 1825, when the population was at most about fifteen per cent higher than in 1801, there were 445 farmers and 89 cottars with land. This is little compared to the number of households, and shows that we have lost the details of a district somewhat outside the norm. In Holt there were the large Nes ironworks, a number of mines which supplied it, several sawmills and the port of shipment of Tvedestrand. This means that the impact in some of the statistical tables concerning occupations could be greater than the percentage - a half per cent - of the total poplation represented by Holt- Dypvåg. It is important that this is clearly understood when using the tables given here.

3. THE PRESENT STUDY

3.1. Classifications and Definitions
There arose in the carrying- out of the census (see section 2 above) a number of problems, errors and gaps that will lead to certain difficulties when the census is used statistically. Some of these, place of residence, age, marital status, family and household, have been discussed. But by far the greatest difficulty concerns occupational groups which will be discussed here.

Some 40 000 different terms are used in the census in the column for occupational status. Many of these, of course, actually represent a real occupation, fisherman, cobbler, or farmer. But some describe legal status such as freeholder; others social status such as cottar with or without land; yet others describe physical status, such as handicapped or mentally ill. In addition many persons are given two occupational statuses. In presenting the tables it has thus proved very difficult to reduce these 40 000 terms to a small number of significant terms. To this problem two solutions have been attempted; a detailed listing of some 300 forms of occupation or status which are in their turn divided into 39 main groups.

In listing these categories, we have been guided by the following principles; (a) The first has been to base ourselves on the occupational terms as they actually appear in the Census, even when they do not in fact tell anything about occupation, for example cottar without land. As a result, the occupational groups contain marked inconsistencies which must be accepted if one wishes both to set up larger categories and at the same time not do violence to the source material. (b) In those cases where several terms are used of the same person, the following fundamental categories are used as the basis for our classification and are given priority over all others; farmer, cottar with land, cottar without land, fisherman, lodger and in addition the combinations farmerlfisherman, cottar with land/fisherman, cottar without land/fisherman. If an individual can be clearly placed in one of these categories, this has been done without reference to whatever other information might have been given. After these basic categories a second level of priority is given to pensioners and retired farmers with pension from own farm.

The remaining categories do not raise such difficulties if only because they cover a much smaller number of people. In grouping the occupations, merchants, shopkeepers and innkeepers have been given greater priority than ship captains, ship mates, masters of small vessels and the whole range of craftsmen. A "ship mate and innkeeper" is reckoned as an innkeeper. Non- commissioned officers and soldiers, as all junior local administrative officers, have been given the lowest priority of all. But these priorities have been used with care; in those cases where it is clear that the priest has made use of a different set of priorities, his principles have been followed. When a craftsman is listed with several trades, he is placed in that sub- category which is given first, providing it is a real category.

In the case of the eight main categories, 18- 25, the sub- divisions approximate the other main categories and observe the same priorities as them. Thus soldiers have the lowest priority. As an example; to bring together all the smiths one must add together the relevant sub- divisions within categories 11 and 12, but also sub- divisions 41 within the main categories 18- 25. Nontheless, one can still not be certain that one has in fact brought together all the smiths. The same applies to soldiers; soldiers will be found under many main categories, but nevertheless some of them have been "lost" due to the limited number of categories.

Our basic principle has been to use the actual term for the occupation to decide which occupational group a person will appear in. There are exeptions; the most important is when an occupational term, for example "servant", is found in the column for household status. In these cases the occupational will be decided on the basis of this information, or by comparison if another term appears in the "occupation" column. Thus if one finds "lodger" in the household column and "smith" in the occupation column, the individual will be placed in main category 25 sub- division 41, "lodger and smith".

Grown- up children of the head of household have sometimes, and sometimes not,been listed in the census as servants. For the sake of consistency, they have never been classified as servants. Likewise, the wife of a lodger will sometimes be described by a different occupational term. Such wives are always classfied as lodgers.

Norwegian public officials fall today into two main categories, higher civil servants (embetsmenn) and lower civil servants (bestillings- og tenestemenn). Higher civil servants are appointed by the King- in Council and have positions that are, among other things, defined in the Constitution. Lower civil servants are appointed by subordinate official bodies. This division of civil servants into superior and lower groups is hardly applicable at a time when the absolute monachy was very reluctant either to delegate the power or the right to make appointments. In dividing up the civil servants we have regarded the following as being higher civil servants (category 1- 3); (1) all those with positions or titles which are specifically named in the List of Titles for 1801. (2) all those positions that are named in the Royal Court and State Calender for 1801. (3) all deans, priests and chaplains, with the exception of private chaplains. All other individuals in official occupations are treated as ordinary civil servants (category 4).

Only one of our tables is divided geographically by parish; the other tables are based on larger areas. But because computer programs are made for each table, figures can be produced for every aggregate of the parish unit. New questions can be raised and new answers found without it being necessary to re- punch the census material. No committment has been made for future research.

3.2. Production of the tables, and Controls
From copies of the original census lists all the information was punched on paper tapes. The paper tapes were transferred to the computer, and the counts written out on lists purporting to be true copies of the originals. The results were checked in various ways. First, ordinary proof- reading took place. Then all the terms were listed and scrutinized. Here, for instance, it was possible to observe if the name corresponded to the sex. At the same time, the population of each parish was checked against the totals on the vicar's original forms. If there were eviations, the size of the population was checked parish by parish and farm by farm. Often, the new figure was incorrect, at other times the vicar's figures proved inexact. This check was extremely thorough. The purpose of this work was to make the new computerized edition of the count as literally correct as possible.

In order to produce statistics, many of the various terms in the census had to be organized into groups. This was done from alphabetical lists of all the terms, where identical terms were only included once. There were about 15 000 different terms for types of household establishments, 5.000 terms for marital status, and over 40 000 occupational terms. With the aid of the computer, each term was given its numerical code, and after checks these codes were placed back against the persons from whom the terms were taken. Thereafter, a new edition of the count was produced where the contents of each column in the original form was substituted by a numerical code. The given name was deleted. From the literal (alphabetical) version a coded version was thus produced, and this was the basis for the production of tables.

Also in this part of the work there were several checks. The code for each individual term was checked several times. After affixing thecode to each person, a number of tests were carried out aimed first and foremost at the structure of the household establishment, age, and marital status. Several thousand households with a suspicious composition of these variables were examined and adjusted, if necessary.

Despite this control work there have, during the production of the tables, appeared a number of probable errors in the material. In most cases the errors were discovered when a combination of characteristics indicated illogical correlations. As it is not possible to count on such logical checks uncovering all errors of a similar nature in the material, no attempt has been made to correct the tables. Researchers with particularly stringent demands for precision must therefore decide for themselves how such errors should be uncovered and corrected.

The tables in this publication contain the following probable errors:

1. The table showing the population arranged according to age and marital status shows that 34 men and 42 women in the age group 1- 15 years old are registered as married or previously married.

2. The table giving the population arranged in main groups and subgroups according to occupation shows that both amongst men and women there are occupations that seem hardly reasonable for the respective sexes. Two men are registered as midwives, and some women appear as clergy, senior local administrative officers and army officers.

3. The table for status in the household combined with trade or occupation has in the group (Other children under 15 with no specific occupation) some persons where information concerning their status in the household establishment indicates that they were over 15 years of age.

4. After the table over institutional households was completed, it was found to include two person who, according to other characteristics, probably did not belong to an institutional household. They have therefore been kept out of this table. In addition it appeared that five persons did not belong to any type of household at all, since they could not be placed in relationship to any household heads. These persons, seven in all, not included in the household tables, have the following characteristics:

3.3. Main Results of the Census
The existing part of the census, which forms the b- es in this publication, shows a population figure of 879 020. If the population of Holt parish, 4 533, is added, the total population of Norway arrived at in this way is 883 603 in 1801. By comparison, it may be mentioned that the population today is 4.1 million.

The population in 1801 can be studied from various criteria for geographic distribution. If the population is divided into urban/rural categories, it will be found that 88 144 persons lived in towns ("kjøpstader" and "ladestader", as mentioned above), and 790 876 lived in rural areas. This gives an urban population of exactly 10 per cent of the total. In Norway today, nearly 70 per cent of the population lives in urban areas, the definition of which corresponds fairly well to that of towns in 1801.

If one looks at the geographical distribution, the differences between 1801 and our times are much less. Eastern Norway had 45 per cent of the population in 1801, and increased this to 48.7 per cent in 1975. Northern Norway's share increased from 8.9 to 11.6 per cent. The three other geographical areas receded: Trøndelag from 11.8 to 9.1 per cent, Western Norway from 26.3 to 25.2 per cent and Agder from 8 to 5.4 per cent.

The population structure according to sex and age has changed considerably from 1801 up to today. The proportion of women to men in the total population in 1801 was 109 to 100, in other words a clear surplus of women. This had nearly righted itself in 1975, with 101 women to 100 men. It is in the older sections of the population that the greatest surplus of women is generally to be found. In the ages above 60 years old, the surplus of women decreased from 135 in 1801 to 126 in 1975. Divided according to age, the population in 1801 had a clear "pyramid" shape, with many children and few old people, a structure witnessing a high level of natality (high birth rate). 34.2 per cent of the population was under 15 years of age and only 8.9 per cent over 60, whilst the corresponding figures for 1975 were 23.7 and 19.2 per cent. On the other hand, the population between 15 and 60 years of age, comprising roughly all the occupationally active, has changed very little, from 56.8 per cent in 1801 to 57.1 per cent in 1975.

The population structure according to marital status gives insight into both demographic and social conditions. The low proportion of married people in the younger age groups tells of late marriages. In the age group 25- 29, 44 per cent of the men and 50 per cent of the women were married, as against 68 per cent and 84 per cent of the women in the same age groups in 1975. With aid of the figures indicating the proportion between married and unmarried people in the various age groups it is possible to approximate the age of marriage around 1800 to 29 years of age for men and just under 28 years of age for women, i.e. 3- 4 years above the level in our times. Another special feature of the marital structure in 1801 is the number of widowed persons. Because of the high mortality rate a number of marriages broke up early due to the death of one of the partners. It was usual for the survivor to remarry. In about 150 000 marriages, where the partners lived together, 20 000 men and 17 000 women had been married at least once before. But the opportunity for remarriage was very unequal for the two sexes. The deficit of men placed difficulties in the path of widows, and already from the age of 60 there were more widows than married women. The corresponding limit for men was far above 70 years of age.

The main rule in the society of 1801 seems to have been that each married couple formed the core of an establishment, a household. Single person establishments were rare. Therefore the average size of the households was as high as 5.4. Today the figure is below 3. In contrast to today the size of the household showed considerable social variations. Local administrative officers and merchants could have households of an average size of 8- 10, whereas those of cottars and workmen lay around 4. The size of the households mirrors first and foremost an extensive transfer of labour in the form of servants from the lower to the higher social strata. Most people in 1301 lived in private households. Only slightly more than 2 700 persons belonged to the so- called institutional establishments of military forts, prisons, poor houses, or hospitals.

In the 1801 census, perhaps the information about trades and occupations is the most interesting. A summary count shows that the population engaged in various occupations amounted to barely 320 000 people - not counting married women and children living at home when these are without occupations of their own. By far the largest number belong to the primary industries of agriculture, forestry and fishing. This number includes 130 000 farmers, cottars and fishermen and the majority of 21 000 lodgers, 12 000 day labourers and 105 000 servants, in all about 250 000 persons or about 80 per cent of the population engaged in various occupations. In Norway today the number of those occupied in the primary industries amounts to less than 10 per cent. In the secondary industries of handicrafts, industry and mining, one finds about 20 000 occupationally active persons in 1801, a meager 5- 10 per cent of the working poplation, as against 35 per cent today. In 1801, about 50 000 persons or about 15 per cent, were occupied in the tertiary sector. Today the percentage has passed 50. But the composition of this group was different in 1801. About 16 000 military personnel fall into a separate group, so that only around 35 000 persons can be said actually to be involved in services, trade and the transport sector. Even though only a few approximate figures have been indicated here, and the borderline between occupations and economic activities is in fact far less clear than indicated here because of secondary industries and seasonal work, it is possible to see clearly the contours of a society where the production of foodstuffs for national consumption and thereafter the extraction and simple processing of some important export products (timber, fish, mining products) dominated the economic life.