Sørfold
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| Sørfold kommune | |||
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| — Municipality — | |||
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| Coordinates (city): 67°13′14″N 15°48′31″E / 67.22056°N 15.80861°ECoordinates: 67°13′14″N 15°48′31″E / 67.22056°N 15.80861°E | |||
| Country | Norway | ||
| County | Nordland | ||
| District | Salten | ||
| Municipality ID | NO-1845 | ||
| Administrative centre | Straumen | ||
| Government | |||
| - Mayor (2007) | Lars Evjenth (Ap) | ||
| Area (Nr. 82 in Norway) | |||
| - Total | 1,653 km2 (638.2 sq mi) | ||
| - Land | 1,109 km2 (428.2 sq mi) | ||
| Population (2004) | |||
| - Total | 2,019 | ||
| - Density | 1/km2 (2.6/sq mi) | ||
| - Change (10 years) | -2.7 % | ||
| - Rank in Norway | 330 | ||
| Time zone | CET (UTC+1) | ||
| - Summer (DST) | CEST (UTC+2) | ||
| Official language form | Bokmål | ||
| Norwegian demonym | Sørfoldværing[1] | ||
| Website | www.fauske.kommune.no | ||
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Sørfold is a municipality in Nordland county, Norway. It is part of the Salten traditional region. The administrative centre of the municipality is the village of Straumen. The old municipality of Folden was divided into Sørfold and Nordfold-Kjerringøy on 1 January 1887.
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[edit] General information
[edit] Name
The municipality is named after the Folda fjord (Old Norse: Fold). The inner part of the fjord is divided into two arms Nordfolda ("the northern Folda") and Sørfolda ("the southern Folda"). The meaning of the fjord name is unknown (maybe "the broad one").
[edit] Coat-of-arms
The coat-of-arms is from modern times. They were granted on 24 April 1987. The arms show a wheel of a turbine in a hydroelectric power plant. The streams around the municipality contained many rapids and waterfalls, which are partly harnessed to generate electricity. This has provided a major source of income for the community.[2]
[edit] Geography
The district's total land area is 1,661.6 square kilometres (641.5 sq mi), of which 141 square kilometres (54 sq mi) is covered with permanent ice and snow, and only 265.8 square kilometres (102.6 sq mi) lies below the 150-meter contour line. The total length of coastline is 249 kilometres (155 mi). In 1987, only 3.2 square kilometres (1.2 sq mi) was being farmed. To the north of Sørfold is Hamarøy and to the south is Fauske muncipality. Rago National Park, with its wild nature dominated by bare rock, streams, and pine forest, is located in Sørfold. There are several nature reserves. Veikdalen nature reserve, roughly 300 meters above sea level, protects a largely undisturbed pine and birch forest (some logging before 1918) with many standing dead pine trees.[3]
The small village of Mørsvikbotten is located in the north of the district. Mørsvikbotten has a school, a grocery shop, a small church, an aquaculture co-op, and a few camping sites. Five kilometers north of Mørsvikbotten lies the lake Mørsvikvatnet. In this area, Mørsry, the German army had a prisoner-of-war camp during World War II housing mostly Russian POWs. They were building a railway, which was intended to be a link between Fauske and Narvik. Some ruins of the camp, the foundations of the railway line, a tunnel, and roads can still be observed. A small, now empty, cemetery for fallen Russian soldiers is located close to the camp, 50 meters on the left-hand side just before the single concrete bridge. Other lakes are Andkjelvatnet, Sildhopvatnet and Trollvatnet.
[edit] References
- ^ "Personnemningar til stadnamn i Noreg" (in Norwegian). Språkrådet. http://www.sprakrad.no/Sprakhjelp/Rettskriving_Ordboeker/Innbyggjarnamn.
- ^ Norske Kommunevåpen (1990). "Nye kommunevåbener i Norden". http://www.ngw.nl/int/nor/s/sorfold.htm. Retrieved 2008-11-29.
- ^ "Veikdalen naturreservat". http://nordland.miljostatus.no/msf_themepage.aspx?m=1704#14836. Retrieved 2008-11-29. (Norwegian)
[edit] External links
Media related to Sørfold at Wikimedia Commons
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