Vestvågøy

Vestvågøy is a municipality in Nordland county, Norway. It is part of the traditional district of Lofoten. The administrative centre of the municipality is the town of Leknes. Some of the villages in the municipality include Ballstad, Borg, Bøstad, Gravdal, Knutstad, Stamsund, and Tangstad. With over 11,300 inhabitants, Vestvågøy is the most populous municipality in all of the Lofoten and Vesterålen regions in Nordland county.

The Lofotr museum in Borg shows a reconstructed Iron Age Viking chieftain's residence, with a house measuring 80 m, built of stone and turf.

The 424 km2 municipality is the 232nd largest by area out of the 356 municipalities in Norway. Vestvågøy is the 99th most populous municipality in Norway with a population of 11,551. The municipality's population density is 28.4 PD/km2 and its population has increased by 6.3% over the previous 10-year period.

General information
The municipality of Vestvågøy was created on 1 January 1963 when the four municipalities on the island of Vestvågøya were merged into one municipality for the whole island. The old municipalities on the island were Borge (population: 4,056), Buksnes (population: 4,416), Hol (population: 3,154), and Valberg (population: 662). Initially, Vestvågøy had 12,288 residents. The borders have not changed since.

Name
The municipality is named after the island of Vestvågøya. The Old Norse name of the island was Lófót (see Lofoten), but when Lofoten became the name of the whole archipelago, the island became known as Vestvågøy. The first element of the name is the prefix which means "west". The middle element derives from the word which means "bay" or "inlet". The last element is the definite form of the word which means "the island". Thus it means "the west bay island".

Coat of arms
The coat of arms was granted on 7 September 1984. The official blazon is "Azure, two stockfish addorsed" (I blått to opprette og motstilte sølv tørrfisker). This means the arms have a blue field (background) and the charge is two dried codfish (also known as stockfish. The fish have a tincture of argent which means they are commonly colored white, but if it is made out of metal, then silver is used. This was chosen since the municipality is one of the main Norwegian exporters of (dried) cod or stockfish and has been since the Middle Ages. The arms were designed by Kjell Kvivesen.

Churches
The Church of Norway has five parishes (sokn) within the municipality of Vestvågøy. It is part of the Lofoten prosti (deanery) in the Diocese of Sør-Hålogaland.

Geography
Vestvågøy municipality is among the most scenic in Norway. It encompassed the whole island of Vestvågøya with the Norwegian Sea to the north and the Vestfjorden to the south. The island has rugged cliffs and peaks facing the southeastern coast. Towards the northwest, however, the land is flat, with extensive farmlands. Most people are found in the town of Leknes and in its "twin town" Gravdal, where Nordland Hospital is located. Along the southeastern coast, one finds picturesque fishing villages like Ballstad and Stamsund, where the Hurtigruten (coastal ferry) stops.

The coastline is dominated by high mountains, such as the 671 m tall Skottinden, and on the west coast also sandy white beaches. Uttakleiv the most romantic beach in Europe, according to the British newspaper The Times, and the neighbouring Hauklandsstranden is ranked by the Norwegian newspaper Dagbladet as the best beach in Norway.

In Leknes, the sun (midnight sun) is above the horizon from May 26 until July 17, and in winter the sun does not rise from December 9 until January 4. The midnight sun is best viewed from the western beaches, such as Uttakleiv and Eggum.

Climate
There is an official weather station at Leknes Airport. Vestvågøy has the rare cold-summer mediterranean climate (Köppen Csc). Autumn and winter is much wetter than spring and summer. The driest month (July) get less than one fifth of the precipitation in the wettest month (December), fitting the mediterranean category with only 38 mm of rain, under the 40 mm required for such a classification.



Government
All municipalities in Norway are responsible for primary education (through 10th grade), outpatient health services, senior citizen services, welfare and other social services, zoning, economic development, and municipal roads and utilities. The municipality is governed by a municipal council of directly elected representatives. The mayor is indirectly elected by a vote of the municipal council. The municipality is under the jurisdiction of the Salten og Lofoten District Court and the Hålogaland Court of Appeal.

Municipal council
The municipal council (Kommunestyre) of Vestvågøy is made up of 33 representatives that are elected to four year terms. The tables below show the current and historical composition of the council by political party.

Mayors
The mayors of Vestvågøy:


 * 1963-1963: Alsing Wik (H)
 * 1964–1967: Walter Tjønndal (Ap)
 * 1968–1969: Boy Rist (H)
 * 1970–1971: Karl Leirfall (Sp)
 * 1972–1973: Eivind Bolle (Ap)
 * 1974–1975: Johannes Sundrønning (Ap)
 * 1976–1977: Petter Limstrand (Sp)
 * 1978–1981: Johannes Sundrønning (Ap)
 * 1982–1983: Petter Limstrand (Sp)
 * 1984–1987: Søren Fredrik Voie (H)
 * 1988–1991: Karl Sverre Klevstad (KrF)
 * 1992–1999: Frank Rist (Sp)
 * 1999–2007: Guri Ingebrigtsen (Ap)
 * 2007–2015: Jonny Finstad (H)
 * 2015–2023: Remi Solberg (Ap)
 * 2023–present: Jonny Finstad (H)

Transportation
Leknes is the municipal and administrative centre and is situated in the geographical middle of Lofoten, approximately 68 km west of Svolvær and 65 km east of Å. Leknes is the trading and shopping centre of Lofoten, only rivaled by Svolvær. Leknes Airport is for smaller aircraft, with 7 daily scheduled flights to Bodø and some daily flights to Svolvær and Røst with Widerøe airlines. There is a small bus terminal which serves as a hub with bus links to the rest of Lofoten. The Leknes Havn (harbor) is one of Norway's most important and visited harbors for cruise ships. Hurtigruten has been an important means of communication for a century. It docks in Stamsund twice every night, one heading south towards Bodø the other heading north towards Svolvær.

The European route E10 highway crosses the municipality (and island) with the Sundklakkstraumen Bridge connecting to Vågan in the north and the Nappstraumen Tunnel connecting to Flakstad in the south.

Twin towns – Sister cities
Vestvågøy is twinned with:


 * 🇮🇸 Skeiða- og Gnúpverjahreppur, Iceland

Notable people

 * Hartvig Jentoft (1693 in Borge – 1739), a Norwegian tradesman and sailor
 * Karl Uchermann (1855 in Borge – 1940), a Norwegian painter of dogs and altarpieces
 * Mikael Heggelund Foslie (1855 in Borge – 1909), a botanist and algaeologist
 * Jens R. Nilssen (1880 in Valberg – 1964), a Norwegian illustrator, comics creator, and cartoonist
 * Edvarda Lie (1910–1963), a painter, drawer, and illustrator who was brought up in Vestvågøy
 * Boy Rist (1912 in Gravdal – 1972), a naval officer and member of the Norwegian resistance in WWII
 * Harald Sverdrup (1923 in Gravdal – 1992), a Norwegian poet and children's writer
 * Kari Wærness (born 1939 in Leknes), a Norwegian sociologist
 * Søren Fredrik Voie (born 1949 in Vestvågøy), a politician who was Mayor of Vestvågøy from 1983-1987
 * Guri Ingebrigtsen (1952–2020), a Norwegian politician who was Mayor of Vestvågøy from 1999 to 2007
 * Rahim Aga Khan (born 1971), son of Prince Karim Aga Khan who bought a house in Unstad in 2019