After the death of her grandfather Harald V on Friday and the accession to the throne of her father, Haakon VIII, the young princess is expected to become the first woman to reign over the country in more than six centuries. Who is she?
Born on January 21, 2004 in Oslo, Ingrid Alexandra is the daughter of Haakon and Mette-Marit. She has a younger brother, Sverre Magnus, as well as an older half-brother on her mother’s side, Marius Borg Høiby. Its place in the order of succession results from a historic reform adopted in 1990: Norway then established absolute primogeniture, giving priority to the eldest of the sovereign’s children, regardless of their sex. As the reform is not retroactive, Ingrid Alexandra is the first woman to benefit from it.
The future queen grew up with her parents’ stated desire to offer her as ordinary a childhood as possible. She notably began her schooling at a local public school before attending the Oslo International School and then completing her secondary education in Oslo in 2023. She then worked for some time as an assistant in a school. In January 2024, she began her military service in an engineering battalion of the Norwegian Army. Trained in particular as a shooter aboard a CV-90 armored vehicle, she extended her commitment to fifteen months and completed it in April 2025.
Ingrid Alexandra then chose to study at the University of Sydney, in Australia, in a course devoted in particular to international relations and political economy. However, she returned temporarily to Norway in 2026, in particular due to the state of health of her mother, Mette-Marit, who suffered from pulmonary fibrosis. She continued her studies at the University of Oslo as part of an exchange.
Gradually prepared for her future responsibilities, at the age of 18 she had already visited Parliament, the Supreme Court and the Prime Minister’s offices before attending the Council of State alongside her father and grandfather. In April 2025, she also participated in the official program of a state visit for the first time. Now front-line heir, Ingrid Alexandra could one day write a new page in the monarchy: no woman has reigned over Norway since Queen Marguerite, who died in 1412.
