The Mining Town of Røros

Røros Mining Town was entered on the World Heritage List in 1980. Røros has had 333 years of continuous mining and farming together with strong links to and inputs from Germany, Denmark and Sweden as well as the city of Trondheim and the outlying district surrounding the town. This has resulted in a collection of wooden buildings that contain some of the best of Norwegian traditions, and, at the same time, are quite unique in our country and in our industrial, social, cultural and architectural heritage. Røros Mining Town together with the surrounding area is a characteristic example of an important traditional style of wooden building architecture creating a unique mining town at an altitude of 600 m above sea level.

The mining town has been preserved in much the same way as it was originally constructed with a street plan that was designed and laid out in the 1600s; many of the wooden buildings were constructed in the 1700s and 1800s, and, as a result of all this, Røros is now included on the World Heritage List.

In 2009 Norway applied to UNESCO to extend the original area of Røros World Heritage to include the surrounding cultural landscape as important evidence to show how mining activity has been carried out together with the enormous need for transportation (to carry ore from the mines and bring in charcoal and wood to fire off sulphur and fuel the smelting ovens) that was necessary and to show how people adjusted to the bleak mountain landscape, the tough natural surroundings and the extremely cold climate with very difficult conditions for animal husbandry and the growing of pasture and crops.