Bruvik is a former municipality in the old Hordaland county, Norway. The municipality existed from 1870 until its dissolution in 1964. At the time of its dissolution, the municipality covered 391 km2 on both sides of the Veafjorden, the innermost part of the Sørfjorden, including the southeastern part of the island of Osterøy. The administrative centre of the municipality was the village of Bruvik where Bruvik Church is located.

History

The parish of Haus was established as a municipality on 1 January 1838 (see formannskapsdistrikt law). On 1 January 1870, the northeastern district of Haus (population: 2,062) was separated from Haus to form the new municipality of Bruvik. During the 1960s, there were many municipal mergers across Norway due to the work of the Schei Committee. On 1 January 1964, the municipality of Bruvik was dissolved and its lands were split up as follows:

Name

The municipality (originally the parish) is named after the old Bruvik farm since the first Bruvik Church was built there. The first element is which means "mountain ridge" or "rim". The last element is the genitive case of the word which means "bay", "cove" or "inlet". Thus it means the bay by the mountain ridge.

Coat of arms

The coat of arms was granted on 14 December 1960. The blazon was "Azure, a chevron over a cogwheel argent". This means the arms have a blue field (background) and the charge is a cogwheel with a chevron ordinary above it. The charge 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 design was chosen to symbolize the importance of industry in the municipality. In 1964 when Bruvik municipality was dissolved, the new municipality of Vaksdal (which included the majority of the old Bruvik municipality) chose to continue using the old arms of Bruvik. Vaksdal used the arms until 1990 when new arms were adopted.

Government

During its existence, this municipality was governed by a municipal council of directly elected representatives. The mayor was indirectly elected by a vote of the municipal council.

Mayors

The mayors of Bruvik:

Municipal council

The municipal council (Heradsstyre) of Bruvik was made up of 37 representatives that were elected to four year terms. The party breakdown of the final municipal council was as follows: