American Nautical Services
Norwegian Charts Now Available
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Charts produced by Norway's Kartverket (Norwegian for "Mapping Authority") are now available in the United States as print-on-demand charts.
The Norwegian Hydrographic Service (a division of Kartverket responsible for marine navigation) signed an agreement with OceanGrafix by which OceanGrafix chart agents are authorized to print and distribute nautical charts for Norway. The 100+ charts—which comprise a majority of the charts produced by NHS—are updated every two weeks using the same technology OceanGrafix developed to print US charts on demand.
The agreement was signed in August 2011 and is effective for most charts of Norway's mainland coast. Charts covering Svalbard, Jan Mayen, and the antarctic island Bouvetøya remain available from NHS-appointed distributors only. OceanGrafix agents must opt-in to the Norwegian agreement if they wish to offer Norwegian charts to their customers.
Norway has copyrighted the charts it produces and collects a royalty on each chart printed. For this reason, the price for Norwegian charts printed on demand is $39.95, as compared to $21.95 for US-produced charts.
Norwegian Hydrographic Service print-on-demand chart coverage
NHS charts use WGS 84 datum as it is the global standard for nautical charts. Text is presented in both Norwegian and English, so the charts are usable to mariners not fluent in Norwegian.
An example of a Norwegian chart
Browse the 100+ Norwegian charts available for print-on-demand here.
Tim Gossett covers maritime industry news for American Nautical Services, where he has helped container lines to improve hazmat operations via software. Tim also helps to outfit vessels with digital navigational data, keeping pace with an industry shift to paperless navigation. Tim is a hobbyist web developer, which is useful in his role managing amnautical.com and maritimecompliance.com