page_title: Norwegian Americans
section_title: Colonial settlement
hierarchical_section_title: Norwegian Americans / History / Earlier history / Colonial settlement
caption_attribution_description: English: United States 5c Norse-American stamp of 1925
context_page_description: Norwegian Americans are Americans with ancestral roots in Norway. Norwegian immigrants went to the United States primarily in the latter half of the 19th century and the first few decades of the 20th century. There are more than 4.5 million Norwegian Americans, according to the most recent U.S. census, most live in the Upper Midwest. Norwegian Americans are currently the 10th-largest European ancestry group in the United States. In a U.S. context Norwegian Americans often refer to themselves as Norwegian; however in Norway they are primarily seen as Americans with only distant ancestral ties to Norway. There are significant cultural differences between Norwegians and Norwegian Americans; for example Norwegians are highly secular, while Norwegian Americans are often religious.
context_section_description: There was a Norwegian presence in New Amsterdam (New York after 1664) in the early part of the 17th century. Hans Hansen Bergen, a native of Bergen, Norway, was one of the earliest settlers of the Dutch colony of New Amsterdam, having immigrated in 1633.
  Another of the first Norwegian settlers was Albert Andriessen Bradt who arrived in New Amsterdam in 1637. Pieter Van Brugh, Mayor of Albany, New York was the grandson of Norwegian immigrants. His mother's parents were Roelof Janse (1602–1637), born in Marstrandsön, a small island situated in Båhuslen province in Norway (ceded to Sweden in 1658) and Anneke Jans (1605–1663), born on Flekkerøy, an island situated outside the town of Kristiansand, Vest-Agder county, Norway.
  Approximately 60 people had settled in the Manhattan area before the English take-over in 1664. How many Norwegians that settled in New Netherland (the area up the Hudson River to Fort Oranje—now Albany) is not known. The Netherlands (and especially Amsterdam and Hoorn) had strong commercial ties with the coastal lumber trade of Norway during the 17th century and many Norwegians immigrated to Amsterdam. Some of them settled in Dutch colonies, although never in large numbers. (For further reading, see for example J.H. Innes, New Amsterdam and its people.) There were also Norwegian settlers in Pennsylvania in the first half of the 18th century, upstate New York in the latter half of the same century, and in New England during both halves.
caption: A 1925 U.S. postage stamp featuring the ship Viking honoring the 100th anniversary of Norwegian immigration.
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