Smøla is a municipality in Møre og Romsdal county, Norway. It is part of the Nordmøre region. The administrative centre of the municipality is the village of Hopen, other villages include Dyrnes, Råket, and Veiholmen. The 272 km2 municipality is the 272nd largest by area out of the 356 municipalities in Norway. Smøla is the 270th most populous municipality in Norway with a population of 2,158. The municipality's population density is 8.3 PD/km2 and its population has decreased by 1% over the previous 10-year period.

General information

The municipality of Smøla was established on 1 January 1960 after the merger of Edøy Municipality (population: 1,135), Brattvær Municipality (population: 1,361), and Hopen Municipality (population: 1,550). The initial population of Smøla was 4,046. The boundaries have not changed since that time.

Name

The municipality is named after the main island of Smøla ( or Smjöl). The name is probably related to the Danish word or the modern Norwegian word which both mean "crumble", referring to the thousands of small islands and islets around the main island. Researchers at Technische Universität Berlin have claimed that Smøla is the island which Pytheas called Thule (, Thoúlē).

Coat of arms

The coat of arms was granted on 10 March 1989. The official blazon is "Gules, two seagulls volant argent". This means the arms have a red field (background) and the charge is two flying seagulls. 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. This design was chosen to highlight the fact that this is an island community and that is a common type of bird in the area. The arms were designed by Jarle Skuseth. The municipal flag has the same design as the coat of arms.

Churches

The Church of Norway has three parishes within the municipality of Smøla. It is part of the Ytre Nordmøre prosti (deanery) in the Diocese of Møre. In 2019, archaeologists from the Norwegian Institute for Cultural Heritage Research using large-scale high-resolution georadar technology, determined that a 17 meter long Viking ship was buried on the island of Edøya near one of the churches. They estimate its age as over 1,000 years, from the Merovingian or Viking period; the group hopes to conduct additional searches in the area. A similar burial was found previously by the group, in Gjellestad.

Geography

The municipality of Smøla is located north of the town of Kristiansund, off the western coast of Norway. The municipality consists of the main island of Smøla and more than 3,000 smaller ones. The 216 km2 main island is very flat, the highest peak reaches 64 m above sea level. The highest peak in the municipality is 70 m above sea level, being Ramndalshaugen on the island of Kuli. Almost all of the land area consists of marshes and cliffs; only 5% is cultivated into agricultural land. Other minor islands in the municipality include Edøya, Kuli, and Veiholmen. The municipality is separated from the rest of Norway by the Edøyfjorden to the south. Due to the vast number of small islands surrounding Smøla, there are several lighthouses. The three most notable ones are Haugjegla Lighthouse (north of Smøla), Skalmen Lighthouse, (northwest of Smøla), and Tyrhaug Lighthouse (southeast of Smøla in the Edøyfjorden). Scientists of the Institute of Geodesy and Geoinformationtechnique of Technische Universität Berlin were testing the antique maps of Ptolemy and recognized a pattern of calculation mistakes that occurred when one tried to convert the old coordinates from Ptolemy into modern cartographical maps. The scientists believe that, when one compensates for these mistakes, the mythological location Thule corresponds to the island of Smøla.

Climate

Smøla has a temperate oceanic climate, also known as a marine west coast climate (Cfb), with a cool summer and mild winter. The year amplitude is only 11.1 C-change from the coldest to the warmest month. The driest season is from April - July, and the wettest season is autumn and winter. The record high is from July 2018, and the record low is from February 2010.

Government

Smøla 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 Møre og Romsdal District Court and the Frostating Court of Appeal.

Municipal council

The municipal council (Kommunestyre) of Smøla is made up of 17 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 Smøla:

Media

The newspaper Nordvestnytt has been published in Smøla since 1988.

Energy

On 5 September 2002, Statkraft announced the opening of the Smøla Wind Farm, a 40 MW wind project comprising twenty 2 MW wind turbines by Norway's King Harald V. This corresponds to phase one of the wind project, which when completed will have a total installed capacity of more than 110 MW. Phase two was opened in September 2005 and included forty-eight 2.3 MW wind turbines. All in all, the wind energy production project consists of 68 windmills, making it among the largest wind projects in Europe. With a total generating capacity of 150 MW, the Smøla wind farm's 68 turbines account for more than half of the installed wind power capacity in Norway. The total generating capacity is equivalent to 450 GWh of electricity per year, which corresponds to the average annual power consumption of 22,500 Norwegian households.

Attractions

Notable people