King Haakon VIII has inherited the Norwegian throne after the death of his father, Harald V. Many in Norway believe he has big shoes to fill. This was reported by Qazaqyia.kz citing BBC News.

King Harald was immensely popular with ordinary Norwegians, as shown by his consistent high polling and the outpouring of emotion in the lead-up to his death.

Haakon is the fourth king to head Norway's modern monarchy, since it was restored in 1905 after the country gained independence from Sweden.

Among his first duties as monarch, he led an extraordinary cabinet meeting where he announced his royal title and adopted his father's motto "Everything for Norway".

Many commentators believe he is well-placed to follow in his predecessors' footsteps.

As crown prince, Haakon worked closely with his father as he carried out his royal duties and in recent years was handed more responsibility, increasingly acting as regent while Harald was ill or absent.

King Harald wrote of his son in his biography The King Tells: "I am so lucky that Crown Prince Haakon is the one who will carry this forward."

Historian Trond Norén Isaksen tells the BBC that Haakon will be a different type of king to his father, but no less respected.

"King Harald... [was] very charismatic, he [had] a great sense of humour, which everyone appreciates, and Haakon is a bit more reserved, a bit more like his mother. But in recent years he has also become a bit more relaxed and opened up a bit and showed a bit more of his sense of humour... he has been pulling enormous weight for many years given his parents have become older and his wife has been ill."

Haakon is a great-great-great-grandson of Britain's Queen Victoria.

His daughter Ingrid Alexandra, 22, now becomes the crown princess and heir to the Norwegian throne.

Haakon was ahead of his older sister, Princess Märtha Louise, in the line of succession.

The constitution was changed in 1990 to give women the right to inherit the throne, so Crown Princess Ingrid Alexandra is in line to be Norway's first female head of state since the 15th Century.

Haakon has become the king at a turbulent time for Norway's royal family.

The monarchy remains broadly popular among Norwegians and has been long praised for its modern outlook.

But in recent years it has been beset by scandal.

Only this year, Haakon's wife Mette-Marit has apologised for several years of ties to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, and her son has been convicted of rape in a high-profile trial. Marius Borg Høiby, who was born from an earlier relationship, is appealing against the conviction.

Born in 1973, King Haakon is the youngest child of the late king and Queen Sonja.

By Haakon's own admission, he struggled at times to accept his royal status in his early years.

"Yes, I was a royal, but I did not want to talk about it... At school it made me anxious," he wrote in his 2023 autobiography, recalling his days in a state primary school in the 1980s.

He became crown prince in 1991 at the tender age of 17, following the death of his grandfather King Olav V.

Unusually for a royal, 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 decided not to follow his father and grandfather to Oxford University, instead flying to California to enrol at the University of Berkeley, where he studied political science.

Soon after his return to Norway, Haakon met his now-wife Mette-Marit at a music festival in her home city of Kristiansand in 1999.