Sentralanlegget (English translation: The Central Facility) is the war headquarters of the
Norwegian government. The facility is located in
Hole
A hole is an opening in or through a particular medium, usually a solid body. Holes occur through natural and artificial processes, and may be useful for various purposes, or may represent a problem needing to be addressed in many fields of en ...
municipality in
Buskerud
Buskerud () is a former county and a current electoral district in Norway, bordering Akershus, Oslo, Oppland, Sogn og Fjordane, Hordaland, Telemark and Vestfold. The region extends from the Oslofjord and Drammensfjorden in the southeast to Har ...
County, and designed as an
underground shelter in the west side of the mountain Kongens utsikt. The purpose of this is to avoid a direct hit from a
nuclear missile
Nuclear weapons delivery is the technology and systems used to place a nuclear weapon at the position of detonation, on or near its target. Several methods have been developed to carry out this task.
''Strategic'' nuclear weapons are used primari ...
from the east.
History
Sentralanlegget was built by the
civil defense
Civil defense ( en, region=gb, civil defence) or civil protection is an effort to protect the citizens of a state (generally non-combatants) from man-made and natural disasters. It uses the principles of emergency operations: prevention, mit ...
authority during the 1960s. The
Cold War and the threats represented by the
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...
made it necessary to build a facility where members of the
Norwegian royal family, members of the government and other key personnel could evacuate to in case of a military attack on the nation. Hole municipality was chosen due to its massive mountain range, ideal for an underground shelter, and because of its relative proximity to the governmental offices and the Royal Palace in
Oslo
Oslo ( , , or ; sma, Oslove) is the capital and most populous city of Norway. It constitutes both a county and a municipality. The municipality of Oslo had a population of in 2022, while the city's greater urban area had a population of ...
. The end of the Cold war marked a change in the threats against Norway, as the neighboring Soviet Union no longer existed. S