What is a Norwegian mile?

Factual Questions
1

So I’m reading about the murder of some Norwegian death metal guru by another Norwegian metal-er/satanist (interest was piqued by Ogre’s thread about rescuing a kitty from some goths.)

So I google the name of the dead guy - Euronymous - and find a page that references the incident in question. (For some reason I can’t link to a google cached page here because vBulleting seems to keep adding additional URL tags.) It’s the cached version of the second entry on this page. About halfway down I see this sentence:

(the distance between Oslo and Bergen is about 60 Norwegian miles, or a 7 hour long trip).

WTF?

What is a Norwegian mile? and why would a mid-sized to small-ish country need a basic measurement of distance that seems about 7 or 8 times as long as the rest of the world?

2

I Googled “Norwegian mile” (in quotes) and got back This Page. (Scroll down a bit for the tables.

Another link was a PDF doc with this notation:

Norway has its own mile, like Sweden: 10 kilometres equals 1 Norwegian mile

(By the way, this research only took me a New York minute!)

3

One More Try

That’s better.

(I used to know how to do this…)

4

‘Smallish’ compared to what?

5

Never mind. I missed the ‘middle-sized’. :smack:

6

This page expands on postcards reply:

7

Thanks! I appreciate the help.

I should’ve thought to google with the phrase in quotes - my bad… :wally

8

BTW, this definitely-much-smaller-than-Norway country also has its local measurements, that together with the official metric and the widely used Imperial makes for a, er, interesting collage.

Many, many countries have odd measurements.

9

Upon further reflection another question presents itself:

IF

(bolding mine)

and

then how slow do the Norwegians drive? I figure 600 kilometers = appr. 273 miles.
If I average 60 MPH, I’m still only looking at 4.5 hours, right?

Are the roads very windy or something?

10

Yes. It’s a headwind they’re fighting, and that takes them longer. :dubious:

11

Ha! I meant twisty and turny, mr. smarty pants. :slight_smile:

12

BTW,

If you unclick the second “Additional Option” (Automatically parse links in text), vB will not insert an additional “url=” to the address where it finds the embedded “http” in the cached page’s url.

13

There are three main driving routes from Oslo to Bergen. None are direct. All are two-lane, single carriageway (i.e. no physical division in the middle) for essentially all of their length except for short distances near the two cities. All three roads pass through villages and towns, where the speed limit drops to 60 or even 50 km per hour. They are mountain roads, with switchbacks, especially as you descend (or ascend, depending) on the Bergen side. And on two of them you must take a ferry, which means a potentially long wait and a slow crossing.

It’s a beautiful drive, no matter which route you take. But it’s not a fast drive. You’re unlikely to be able to get up to 60 MPH most of the time, forget about that as an average speed.

If that sounds like a mind-numbingly slow drive, may I recommend the breathtaking train ride? It’s faster, and nobody has to miss the scenery to keep their eyes on the road.

To get back to the OP, yes, one Norwegian mile is 10km. In Norwegian this is called a “mil” and the Imperial mile is called an “engelsk mil” - which translates exactly as you’d guess.

14

Ahhh! Thanks everyone for the repsonses!

I guess I was picturing more autostrada/autobahn style highways. It makes a lot more sense if the roads tend to be smaller and twistier.

P