Kvinnherad Municipality

Kvinnherad is a municipality in Vestland county, Norway. It is located in the traditional district of Sunnhordland, along the Hardangerfjorden. The administrative centre of the municipality is the village of Rosendal. The largest village is Husnes, with about 6,000 people living in or near the village. Other villages include Ænes, Åkra, Dimmelsvik, Eidsvik, Hatlestranda, Herøysund, Høylandsbygda, Ølve, Sæbøvik, Sunndal, Sunde, Uskedalen, and Valen.

The municipality is the 104th largest by area out of the 357 municipalities in Norway. Kvinnherad Municipality is the 94th most populous municipality in Norway with a population of . The municipality's population density is and its population has decreased by 1.1% over the previous 10-year period.

In the southern part of Kvinnherad you will find the typical fjord landscape of western Norway. The areas of Mauranger and Rosendal are said to have about the most beautiful fjord landscape of Hardanger as a whole: narrow fjords, wild water-falls, and the nearby Folgefonna, the third biggest glacier in Norway.

During the 1960s, there were many municipal mergers across Norway due to the work of the Schei Committee. On 1 January 1965, the following areas were merged into one large Kvinnherad Municipality:

Historically, this municipality was part of the old Hordaland county. On 1 January 2020, the municipality became a part of the newly-formed Vestland county (after Hordaland and Sogn og Fjordane counties were merged).

Name

The municipality (originally the parish) is named after the old name for the area (). The first element may be derived from the word which means "double", likely referring to the two rivers running through Rosendal, the administrative centre of the municipality. The last element is which means "district" or "countryside".

The municipal name has been spelled several ways throughout history. Before 1889, the name was written Quindherred, then in 1889 the spelling was "modernized" to Kvinnherred. At that time, all municipalities in Norway were titled (which was used similarly to the word "municipality"), so it was formally named Kvinnherred herred, which looked a little repetitive.

On 3 November 1917, a royal resolution changed the spelling of the name of the municipality to Kvinnherad, using the Nynorsk spelling instead of the Bokmål spelling.

Coat of arms

The coat of arms was granted on 18 June 1982. The official blazon is "Argent, a pall wavy azure" (). This means the arms have a field (background) has a tincture of argent which means it is commonly colored white, but if it is made out of metal, then silver is used. The ordinary is a pall with wavy edges. The design of the arms show the confluence of two blue rivers into one on a white or silver background. The rivers symbolize the many streams and rivers in the municipality, especially the Hattebergselvi and the Melselvi, that come together just before they run into the sea at Rosendal. The arms were designed by Truls Nygaard, after a proposal by Magnus Hardeland. The municipal flag has the same design as the coat of arms.

Churches

The Church of Norway has nine parishes () within Kvinnherad Municipality. It is part of the Sunnhordland prosti (deanery) in the Diocese of Bjørgvin.

{|class="wikitable" style="text-align:center"

|+ style="font-size:medium"|Churches in Kvinnherad Municipality

!Parish ()!!Church name!!Location of the church!!Year built

|rowspan="2"|Fjelberg og Eid||Eid Church||Eidsvik||1824

|Fjelberg Church||Fjelbergøya||1722

|rowspan="1"|Hatlestrand||Hatlestrand Church||Hatlestranda||1885

|rowspan="3"|Husnes og Holmedal||Holmedal Church||Utåker||1815

|Husnes Church||Husnes||1874

|Valen Church||Valen||1978

|rowspan="1"|Kvinnherad||Kvinnherad Church||Rosendal||c. 1250

|rowspan="1"|Uskedalen||Uskedal Church||Uskedalen||1914

|rowspan="1"|Varaldsøy||Varaldsøy Church||Varaldsøy||1885

|rowspan="1"|Ænes||Ænes Church||Ænes||c. 1200

|rowspan="1"|Ølve||Ølve Church||Ølve||1861

|rowspan="1"|Åkra||Åkra Church||Åkra||1735

Economy

The economy of Kvinnherad Municipality is based on the rich water resources within its boundaries. This includes power production, aluminium production (Sør-Norge Aluminium), fish farming, shipbuilding (Eidsvik Skipsbyggeri, Hellesøy Verft, Bergen Group Halsnøy), and lifeboat production (Umoe Schat-Harding, Norsafe, Eide Marine Tech, Noreq). These industries are spread throughout the municipality.

Kvinnherad has two local newspapers, Kvinnheringen and Grenda, as well as a local TV channel, TV Sydvest.

Government

Kvinnherad Municipality is 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 Haugaland og Sunnhordland District Court and the Gulating Court of Appeal.

Municipal council

The municipal council () of Kvinnherad Municipality is made up of 35 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 mayor () of Kvinnherad Municipality is the political leader of the municipality and the chairperson of the municipal council. The following people have held this position:

1838–1845: Elias Børge Unger
1846–1849: Christian Lerche Dahl
1850–1851: Gabriel Andreas Heiberg
1852–1855: Samson Torsen Stueland
1856–1857: Christian Lerche Dahl
1858–1861: Hans H. Helland
1862–1862: O. Matthiesen
1862–1865: Ole L. Berget
1866–1867: Lars Olsen Skeie
1868–1869: Hans H. Helland
1870–1873: Clemmet Gerhardsen Roalstveit
1874–1875: Michael L. Langballe
1876–1881: Ole Andreas Olsen (V)
1882–1885: Godskalk Knudsen Aarsand (V)
1886–1893: Andreas Lavik (MV)
1894–1898: Ivar Arnesen (V)
1899–1916: Axel Lea (V)
1917–1941: Ingemar Traavik (Bp)
1942–1945: Einar Tvedt (NS)
1945–1949: Ingemar Traavik (Bp)
1949–1955: Lars Eikeland (V)
1956–1959: Magnus Aksnes (V)
1960–1963: Knut Skaaluren (Sp)
1964–1971: Berge Sæberg (Sp)
1972–1975: Jens Arnesen (H)
1976–1979: Berge Sæberg (Sp)
1980–1985: Jens Arnesen (H)
1986–1993: Thorleif J. Hellesøy (Sp)
1994–1995: Eirik Meyer Eide (KrF)
1995–2003: Aksel Kloster (Ap)
2003–2007: Bjarne Berge (LL)
2007–2015: Synnøve Solbakken (Ap)
2015–2019: Peder Sjo Slettebø (H)
2019–2021: Hans Inge Myrvold (Sp)
2021–2023: Hilde Enstad (Ap)
2023–present: Vegard Bjørnevik (H)

Geography

The municipality is located along the large Hardangerfjorden, mostly on the southeast side of the fjord on the Folgefonna peninsula, but also a small part on the other side. It includes several notable islands in the fjord including Varaldsøy, Fjelbergøya, Borgundøya, and Halsnøya. and Norwegian Historical Data Centre

|1845|4044

|1855|4532

|1865|4547

|1875|4627

|1891|4760

|1900|5045

|1910|5108

|1920|5272

|1930|5293

|1946|5701

|1951|5638

|1960|5514

|1970|11811

|1980|12821

|1990|13121

|2000|13196

|2010|13187

|2020|13071

|2023|13058

Tourism and places of interest

Kvinnherad is a popular tourist location because of its natural landscape as well as several places of interest. The most notable of which include Kvinnherad Church, the Bondhusbrea glacier, the shipping mural in Høylandsbygda, and Radiohola. Rosendal, the administrative centre of the municipality, is the site of the greatest tourist attraction in Kvinnherad: the Barony Rosendal. The Barony is the only one of its kind in Norway. It is a museum, which offers valuable information about the Union with Denmark, an important period of Norwegian history.

Media gallery

File:Rosendal kirke.jpg|Kvinnherad Church in Rosendal

File:Rosendal castle west.png|The Barony Rosendal

File:Husnes.jpg|Husnes and the Hardangerfjord

File:Bondhusbreen.jpg|Bondhusbreen glacier

File:Hardangerfjord Kvinnherad.JPG|View from Gjermundshamn across the Hardangerfjord, with Varaldsøy island and Folgefonna glacier

</gallery>

Notable people

100px|thumb|Jens Tvedt, 1935

100px|thumb|Hans Inge Myrvold, 2017

Axel Gyntersberg (ca.1525 – 1588 in Kvinnherad), a Norwegian nobleman and feudal overlord
Johannes Lauritsson (ca.1540 – ca.1620), a wealthy landowner who lived Valen 1563–1578
Axel Rosenkrantz (1670 in Kvinnherad – 1723), a landowner and baron who owned the Barony Rosendal
Andreas Lavik (1854–1918), a revivalist, temperance advocate, magazine editor, farmer, headmaster, and politician who lived in Kvinnherad from 1885 where he was Mayor for eight years
Jens Tvedt (1857 in Kvinnherad – 1935), a novelist and writer of short stories
Gisle Midttun (1881 in Kvinnherad – 1940), a cultural historian and museologist
Olav Midttun (1883 in Mauranger – 1972), a philologist, biographer, and magazine editor
Ragnvald Vaage (1889 in Husnes – 1966), a poet, novelist, and children's writer
Sigurd Valvatne DSO DSC (born 1913 in Kvinnherad), a naval officer and submariner
Frank Meidell Falch (1920 in Kvinnherad – 2013), a media director and politician
Egil Myklebust (born 1942 in Kvinnherad), a businessperson, lawyer, and CEO of SAS Group
Lars Amund Vaage (born 1952 at Sunde), a novelist
Endre Hellestveit (born 1976 in Rosendal), an actor
Hans Inge Myrvold (born 1985), a Norwegian politician and mayor of Kvinnherad in 2019
Erlend Bratland (born 1991 in Husnes), a singer who won Norske Talenter in 2008