Oslo

The Black Death of 1349 struck Oslo harder than any other part of Norway, carrying off about a third of its people, and through the 15th and 16th centuries the town kept shrinking. In the union with Denmark the kings lived in Copenhagen, and the Reformation of 1537 handed the church estates to the crown and left most of Oslo's churches and monasteries to decay. War came too: when a Swedish army besieged the town in 1567, the burghers set it on fire themselves and rebuilt it afterwards. The old town ended in August 1624, in a fire that burned for three days. Against the burghers' wishes, Christian IV forbade rebuilding on the old site and laid out a new town of straight streets and rectangular blocks across the bay, beneath Akershus, naming it Christiania after himself.