Nesbyen (municipality)

Nesbyen is a municipality in Viken county, Norway. It is part of the traditional region of Hallingdal. The administrative centre of the municipality is the village of Nesbyen.

Nesbyen kommune
Municipality
Administrative centre of Nesbyen
Coat of arms
Viken within
Norway
Nesbyen within Viken
Coordinates: 60°33′30″N 9°6′4″E
CountryNorway
CountyViken
DistrictHallingdal
Administrative centreNesbyen
Government
 • Mayor (2015)Tore Haraldset (LL)
Area
 • Total810 km2 (310 sq mi)
 • Land773 km2 (298 sq mi)
Area rank135 in Norway
Population
 (2004)
 • Total3,467
 • Rank248 in Norway
 • Density4/km2 (10/sq mi)
 • Change (10 years)
1.6%
Demonym(s)Nesning[1]
Time zoneUTC+01:00 (CET)
 • Summer (DST)UTC+02:00 (CEST)
ISO 3166 codeNO-3040
Official language formBokmål[2]
Websitewww.nes-bu.kommune.no
Data from Statistics Norway

The parish of Næs was established as a municipality on 1 January 1838 (see formannskapsdistrikt). The area of Flå was separated from Nes on 1 January 1905 to become a separate municipality.

General information

Name

The municipality (originally the parish) is named after the old Nes farm (Old Norse: Nes—now the village of Nesbyen), since the first church was built there. The name is identical with the word nes which means headland". Prior to 1889, the name was spelled "Næs".

Coat-of-arms

The coat-of-arms is from modern times. They were granted on 29 June 1979. The arms show a yellow-gold triangle pointing to the left on a red background. This represents a sandy peninsula or headlands (yellow triangle) formed by the confluence of two rivers: Rukkedøla and Hallingdalselva. The design is canting because this is what the name of the municipality means (see above under the name).[3]

Number of minorities (1st and 2nd generation) in Nes by country of origin in 2017[4]
Ancestry Number
 Poland95
 Lithuania36
 Eritrea25
 Denmark18
 Netherlands17

History

Ancient routes went to Vestlandet through Valdres and Hallingdal and down Røldal to Odda. Reflecting this route, Hallingdal and its neighboring valley of Valdres were originally populated by migrants from Vestlandet and spoke a western dialect. In recognition of this, Cardinal Nicholas Breakespear, who was in Scandinavia as papal legate in 1153, included these two valleys in the diocese of Stavanger.[5]

Geography

The municipality lies in the valley and traditional district of Hallingdal. It is bordered on the north by the municipality of Gol, on the east by Sør-Aurdal, on the southeast by Flå, on the southwest by Nore og Uvdal, and to the west by Ål.

The majority of the residents live in the villages of Nesbyen, Espeset, Eidal, Sjong, Børtnes, Bromma, Svenkerud, and Liodden.

View from Liodden Camping

Attractions
Trøymstugua from 1645

Hallingdal Museum (Hallingdal Folkemuseum) is located in Nesbyen. Hallingdal Folk Museum, founded in 1899, is one of the oldest open air museums in Norway. It has a large and unique collection of buildings and artifacts from farms in Hallingdal. Special mentions is houses like Staveloftet, built around 1340, from the Stave farm and Trøymstua from about 1645, coming from Hemsedal.

There is an old meteor crater just north of Nesbyen (about 6 kilometres north and then 4 kilometres into the woods). About 650 million years ago, a 200-to-300-metre (660 to 980 ft) meteorite struck this area. This resulted in a 5-kilometre (3.1 mi) impact crater and an enormous amount of outpouring of energy by the impact.

Notable residents
Margarete Bonnevie

References
  1. "Navn på steder og personer: Innbyggjarnamn" (in Norwegian). Språkrådet.
  2. "Forskrift om målvedtak i kommunar og fylkeskommunar" (in Norwegian). Lovdata.no.
  3. Norske Kommunevåpen (1990). "Nye kommunevåbener i Norden". Retrieved 2009-01-10.
  4. "Immigrants and Norwegian-born to immigrant parents, by immigration category, country background and percentages of the population". ssb.no. Archived from the original on 2 July 2015. Retrieved 29 July 2017.
  5. Stagg, Frank Noel (1956). East Norway and its Frontier. George Allen & Unwin, Ltd.
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