Norway’s King Harald V dies, succeeded by son

By Al Jazeera Staff and AP. Published On 28 Aug 202628 Aug 2026.

Key points

• "King Harald passed away peacefully at Oslo University Hospital on Friday, Aug 28 at 6: 35 a.m, " the palace remarked in an official note.
• The death of Europe's oldest reigning monarch was confirmed on Friday by the Royal Palace of Norway.
• His son, Crown Prince Haakon, automatically succeeds him and is projected to reign as King Haakon VIII.
• After being hospitalised with a rare blood condition, norway's King Harald V has died at the age of 89.
• Harald was Norway's first king born on Norwegian soil since the 14th century.

Notably, the death of Europe's oldest reigning monarch was confirmed on Friday by the Royal Palace of Norway.

Royal family members had visited the king on Thursday, and crowds gathered outside the palace and laid flowers for the king after authorities cautioned that his condition had turned "extremely serious".

Harald was hospitalised on August 17, suffering from haemolytic anaemia, a condition caused by an abnormally rapid destruction of red blood cells which leads to fatigue and shortness of breath.

Harald, who ascended the Norwegian throne 35 years ago, has had multiple health challenges over recent years, forcing him to have a pacemaker fitted and to scale back his official schedule.

But he had always ruled out abdicating, arguing that he took a lifelong oath before the Norwegian parliament.

Harald was Norway's first king born on Norwegian soil since the 14th century. After the death of his father, Olav V, he presided over decades of oil-fuelled prosperity, taking the throne in January 1991.

He was born in February 1937, near Oslo. While his father and grandfather, Haakon VII, sat out the war in Britain, when the Nazis invaded Norway his mother fled with him and his sisters to Sweden and then the United States.

Harald won lasting public affection for his speech in 2011 after Anders Behring Breivik's bomb attacks which killed 77 individuals, telling mourners: "I remain convinced that the belief in freedom is stronger than fear."

After documents published in January demonstrated Crown Princess Mette-Marit corresponding with notorious US sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, years after his conviction, his death, nevertheless, comes at a fraught time for the monarchy.

Her 29-year-old son, Marius Borg Høiby, the new King Haakon's stepson, was sentenced in June to four years in prison on two counts of rape and 32 other charges, including domestic violence.

For now, norway's King Harald V dies, succeeded by son remains the part of the story worth watching, and further updates are likely as more details are confirmed.