The historic wooden town of Røros — the Bergstaden — is the reason for the UNESCO listing and the reason to visit. The rows of dark-timbered houses, many built in the 17th and 18th centuries, line the main street (Bergmannsgata) and the lanes leading down toward the smelting works. The buildings are a mix of miners' cottages and the larger houses of the foremen and officials; the social hierarchy of the mining community is readable in the architecture.
Most of the buildings are still inhabited, which gives the town an authenticity rare in heritage areas. The grass-roofed structures and the distinctive dark brown timber — preserved with tar from the mine workings — are unlike anything in the rest of Norway. Walking the streets in the early morning, before the tour groups arrive, gives the most vivid sense of what the town must have felt like when it was an active industrial settlement in a remote mountain landscape.
The best street for the full effect is Bergmannsgata, running north from the church. The side lanes leading west toward the slag heaps are also worth exploring: the heaps themselves, black mountains of mine waste rising against the plateau, are an unexpected element of the World Heritage landscape.