Tettbebygde

Tettbebygde is a Norwegian term used to describe densely built-up areas. It denotes places where the built environment forms a continuous fabric—houses, streets, and other structures are located close to one another with little or no undeveloped land separating them. The concept is widely used in geography, urban planning, and statistics to distinguish densely built zones from rural or sparsely built areas.

In official statistics and planning in Norway, the more formal terms are tettbebyggelse or tettsted for urban settlements, defined as built-up areas with continuous development and a minimum population, typically contrasted with dispersed countryside (spredtbygde). Tettbebygde areas often include towns, suburbs, and peri-urban corridors that function as a single urban or semi-urban fabric. The exact boundaries are not fixed, varying with data sources and purposes, and depend on measures of contiguity and land cover as well as population density.

Linguistically, tettbebygd comes from tett meaning dense and bebyggje or bebygge meaning to build upon or settle. The form tettbebygde is an inflected variant used as an adjective or plural noun in Norwegian.

Understanding the term requires noting that “tettbebygde” is a descriptive designation rather than a single universal administrative category; it describes a landscape pattern rather than a territorial unit with official borders.