Norway's new sovereign Haakon steps into King Harald's legacy

Crown Prince Haakon is stepping into his father King Harald's legacy as Norway’s new sovereign.

After the death of Harald, who was on the Norwegian throne since 1991, his only son is set to begin a new era as King Haakon VIII and Haakon's daughter Princess Ingrid Alexandra becomes the new heir apparent to the throne.

The 50-year-old royal will sit at the helm with his wife of 23 years Crown Princess Mette-Marit. The official crowing ceremony has not been announced yet.

The royal lived an idyllic countryside childhood, received an unroyal university education at the University of California. Haakon grew up in the Skaugum estate.

He moved his wife into the home in 2003 following a period of renovations and is currently raising his two children there.

The new monarch was opened his eyes on 20 July 1973 at The National Hospital in St Hanshaugen, Oslo - the second child of King Harald V and Queen Sonja. 

He was named Haakon Magnus but his birth announcement stressed that he would be known simply as Haakon, after his paternal great-grandfather, Haakon VII.

Haakon became the crown prince at only 17 years old following the death of his grandfather King Olav.

 Unusually, he was educated at local state schools before embarking upon a four-year-long naval career, graduating from the Norwegian Naval Academy in 1995.

He was awarded with Bachelor of Arts degree in political science from the University of California in 1999, having moved away from the expectation that he would attend Balliol College, Oxford as his father and grandfather had done before him.

Haakon continued to equip himself with a wealth of knowledge, graduating from the London School of Economics in 2003 with an MSc in development studies.

Crown Prince Haakon has just one sibling - an older sister named Princess Martha Louise. She was born in 1971.

Though the Norwegian constitution was changed in 1990 so that the first-born child would become the heir, regardless of sex, it was not altered retrospectively in the case of Haakon and Princess Martha Louise, hence she will not inherit the throne.

She is a businesswoman and a self-proclaimed clairvoyant who stepped down as a senior royal in 2022. It was announced that she would relinquish her royal duties to focus on her alternative therapy work alongside her 'shaman' fiance Durek Verrett.

Haakon met his now-wife Mette-Marit Tjessem in 1999 via mutual friends and she wasn't necessarily the future queen his parents had envisioned. 

Mette-Marit was a single mother who had welcomed a child with Morten Borg, one of her ex-partner John Ognby's friends who was also a convicted criminal.