page_title: Norwegian krone
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Norwegian krone / History
caption_attribution_description: Norwegische 20-Kronen-Münze von 1874 mit Wertangabe in Kronen und Speciedaler..
context_page_description: The krone, plural kroner, is the currency of Norway and its dependent territories. It is subdivided into 100 øre, which have existed only electronically since 2012. The name translates into English as crown.
  The krone was the thirteenth-most-traded currency in the world by value in April 2010, down three positions from 2007.
context_section_description: The krone was introduced in 1875, replacing the Norwegian speciedaler/spesidaler at a rate of 4 kroner = 1 speciedaler. In doing so, Norway joined the Scandinavian Monetary Union, which had been established in 1873. The Union persisted until 1914. After its dissolution, Denmark, Norway, and Sweden all decided to keep the names of their respective and since then separate currencies.
  Within the Scandinavian Monetary Union, the krone was on a gold standard of 2,480 kroner = 1 kilogram of pure gold (1 krone = 403.226 milligrams gold). This gold standard was restored between 1916 and 1920 and again in 1928. It was suspended permanently in 1931, when a peg to the British pound of 19.9 kroner = 1 pound was established. (The previous rate had been 18.16 kroner = 1 pound). In 1939, Norway pegged the krone temporarily to the U.S. dollar at a rate of 4.4 kroner = 1 dollar. Nonetheless, Norway would continue to hold the Kingdom's gold reserves.
  During the German occupation (1940–1945) in the Second World War, the krone was initially pegged to the Reichsmark at a rate of 1 krone = 0.6 Reichsmark, later reduced to 0.57. After the war, a rate of 20 kroner = 1 pound (4.963 kroner = 1 U.S. dollar) was established. The rate to the pound was maintained in 1949, when the pound devalued relative to the U.S. dollar, leading to a rate of 7.142 kroner = 1 U.S. dollar. In December 1992, the Central Bank of Norway abandoned the fixed exchange rate in favor of a floating exchange rate (managed float) due to the heavy speculation against the Norwegian currency in the early 1990s, which lost the central bank around two billion kroner in defensive purchases of the NOK through usage of foreign currency reserves for a relatively short period of time.
caption: A 20-crown gold coin. The text '124 Stk. 1 Kil. f. G.' means that 124 pieces gave one kilogram of pure gold.
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