Harstad (town)


Harstad is a city in Harstad Municipality in Troms county, Norway. The city is also the administrative centre of Harstad Municipality. The city has a population of 21,289 and a population density of. It is the second-largest town in Troms county, after the city of Tromsø, and it is the largest town in Central Hålogaland.
The town is located on the northeastern part of the large island of Hinnøya, along the Vågsfjorden. The city is made up of several areas including Gansås, Grønnebakkan, Kanebogen, Medkila, Sama, Seljestad, Stangnes, and Trondenes and more. There are two churches of the Church of Norway in the town: Harstad Church and Kanebogen Church. The historic Trondenes Church lies on the north edge of the town, near the Trondenes Fort.

History

On 1 January 1904, the village of Harstad was granted town privileges as a ladested. On the same date, the new town was separated from the Trondenes Municipality to become a separate town-municipality of its own. Initially, the town of Harstad had 1,246 residents. The town of Harstad existed as its own municipality between 1 January 1904 until 31 December 1963.
During the 1960s, there were many municipal mergers across Norway due to the work of the Schei Committee. On 1 January 1964, the town of Harstad was merged with Trondenes Municipality to the north and Sandtorg Municipality to the south, forming a new, much larger Harstad Municipality.

Name

The town is named after the old Harstad farm, since the town is built where the farm once was located. The first element is the genitive case of the male name Hǫrðr. The last element is which means "homestead" or "farm". On 6 February 2017, the municipality of Harstad adopted a co-equal Sami language name for the municipality: Hárstták. The Sami language name spelling changes depending on how it is used. It is called Hárstták when it is spelled alone, but it is Hársttáid suohkan when using the Sami language equivalent to "Harstad municipality".

Government

The city of Harstad is part of Harstad Municipality. The urban city area itself is not self-governing, but rather the mayor and municipal council for the whole municipality oversees the city and entire municipality. From 1904 until 1963, the city and the municipality were, but since 1964, the municipality has been much more than just the city.

Transport

Harstad is served by Harstad/Narvik Airport which is located south of Harstad and has regular flights to Oslo, Trondheim, Bodø, Tromsø and Andenes.

Climate

Media gallery