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The island of Karmøy in Norway

Thursday, 13 March 2014 - 01:00 pm (CET/MEZ) Berlin | Author/Destination: European Free Trade Association
Category/Kategorie: General Reading Time:  4 minutes

🔊 Listen to this Post Karmøy is a municipality in Rogaland county, Norway. It is located southwest of the city of Haugesund in the traditional district of Haugaland. Karmøy was created as a new municipality on 1 January 1965 after the merger of Kopervik (city), Skudeneshavn (city), Skudenes, Stangaland, Torvastad, Åkra, and most of Avaldsnes. The Karmsund strait was also the source of the name of the kingdom, at the time when the first king of the unified Norway, Harald Fairhair, lived on Karmøy. (See History of Norway.)

The natural and cultural landscape is highly heterogeneous, encompassing chalk-white sands, moorland and several piers around the island. The landscape in the north is mainly agricultural, while large parts of the inland south are heather moors. The island has many white, sandy beaches facing the North Sea, attracting surfers as one of the top spots for windsurfing in Norway. Haugesund Airport is also located on the island rather than in Haugesund proper. Karmøy is known for its industries, as well as for fishing.

Among the sights are:

• Skude Festival is an annual festival held during the first week of July in Skudeneshavn. It is the largest gathering of coastal culture in Western Norway with boats of all categories: vintage boats of all categories – old wooden boats, vintage boats, modern boats, sailing boats, tall ships. Craftsmen demonstrate handcrafts from olden days connected to sea and shipping. International and national artists entertain in the evenings. In 2004, Skudeneshavn was voted Norway’s summer city by national TV viewers.
• Viking Farm (Vikinggarden) is part of the Nordvegen History Centre, located close to Avaldsnes. The building and use of the farm is an ongoing experimental archaeological research and interpretation programme. The farm includes reconstructed houses.
• Karmøy Museum of Fishing (Karmøy Fiskerimuseum), which opened in 1999, presents the history of fishing in the region of Karmøy from the 1950s up to the present day. In addition to the main exhibitions there are salt-water aquariums showing the most common types of fish in the area. The Karmøy Fishery Museum is housed in a new building with unique architecture.
• Mælandsgården Museum (Museet i Mælandsgården) is situated in the middle of the old, well preserved part of Skudeneshavn. A town model shows what old Skudeneshavn looked like in 1918.
• Rogaland Fish Museum (Rogaland Fiskerimuseum), located in an old herring salting factory in Åkrehamn, is fully restored to its former glory and housing new exhibitions about the history of this vibrant coastal community. This museum also richly depicts the contact enjoyed between Karmøy and North America.
• Visnes Mining Museum (Visnes Gruvemuseum) provides the history of the rather special mining community that in the 1800s had 3,000 inhabitants. Visnes supplied the copper for the Statue of Liberty in New York City.
• Ferkingstad, an area known for its archaeological finds, from the early Viking period to the late medieval era.

Read more on Karmøy Tourism and Wikipedia Karmøy. Learn more about the use of photos. To inform you about latest news most of the city, town or tourism websites offer a newsletter service and/or operate Facebook pages/Twitter accounts. In addition more and more destinations, tourist organizations and cultural institutions offer Apps for your Smart Phone or Tablet, to provide you with a mobile tourist guide (Smart Traveler App by U.S. Department of State - Weather report by weather.com - Global Passport Power Rank - Travel Risk Map - Democracy Index - GDP according to IMF, UN, and World Bank - Global Competitiveness Report - Corruption Perceptions Index - Press Freedom Index - World Justice Project - Rule of Law Index - UN Human Development Index - Global Peace Index - Travel & Tourism Competitiveness Index). If you have a suggestion, critique, review or comment to this blog entry, we are looking forward to receive your e-mail at comment@wingsch.net. Please name the headline of the blog post to which your e-mail refers to in the subject line.

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