Norwegian National Road

Norwegian national road (Norwegian: Riksvei/Riksveg abbr. Rv; literally: road of the rike/realm), are roads thus categorized by the Norwegian Public Roads Administration (Statens vegvesen) which also maintains them. In 2007 there were 27,343 km of this class of Norwegian roads, which constituted 29.4% of public roads in Norway.

From 2010, after an administrative reform, most of the national roads were transferred to the counties. 17,200 km of national roads were transferred along with an annual compensation of 6.9 billion NOK for maintenance. So as of January 1, 2010 there were 10,451 km of national roads left.

All national roads have an asphalt concrete cover. Exceptions are some former national roads that have been given special status or protection. The "gravel roads package" was a governmental plan which saw to it that all national roads that hadn't been given special value in the Norwegian national protection plan for roads, bridges and road-related cultural heritage objects (Nasjonal verneplan for veger, bruer og vegrelaterte kulturminner) received asphalt covering. National road 716 (usually labelled Rv 716, Rv is the official abbreviation for Riksvei/Riksveg) between Bergli and Valen in Frøya, Sør-Trøndelag was the last regular stretch of national road with a gravel coating. The last two remaining kilometeres were asphalted on December 17, 2003 with participation by among others Minister of Transport and Communications Torild Skogsholm.

Norwegian national roads that are being maintained as gravel roads according to the protection plan are Norwegian national road 252 (Tyin–Eidsbugarden), Norwegian national road 258 (Grotli-Ospeli bru) and Norwegian national road 886 (Bjørnstad–Jacobselv). All these roads have after the reform been converted to county roads.

The national roads are divided into two categories: European routes and other national roads. The route signs for the European routes have an "E" preceding the national road number and the sign is green with white script. Other national roads are also designated using green signs.

The organization of national, county and village roads (later municipal roads) was introduced in 1931. Starting in 1912 the roads had been divided into main roads ("hovedveier") and village roads ("bygdeveier").