Eiksund is a village in the

municipality A municipality is usually a single administrative division having corporate status and powers of self-government or jurisdiction as granted by national and regional laws to which it is subordinate. The term ''municipality'' may also mean the go ...

Ulstein Ulstein is a municipality in Møre og Romsdal county, Norway. It is part of the Sunnmøre region. The commercial and administrative centre of Ulstein is the town of Ulsteinvik. The municipality occupies the western half of the island of Hareidla ...

, in

Møre og Romsdal Møre og Romsdal (; en, Møre and Romsdal) is a county in the northernmost part of Western Norway. It borders the counties of Trøndelag, Innlandet, and Vestland. The county administration is located in the town of Molde, while Ålesund is the ...

county,

Norway Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe, the mainland territory of which comprises the western and northernmost portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and t ...

. It is located on the southern tip of the island of

Hareidlandet Hareidlandet is an island in Møre og Romsdal county, Norway. The island is divided between Hareid Municipality and Ulstein Municipality. The island has a population of 13,030 (as of 2015). The island is mentioned by Snorri in his reports about ...

. The small island of Eika lies just off the shore from Eiksund. The village is located about southeast of the village of Haddal and about southeast of the town of

Ulsteinvik is a town in the municipality of Ulstein, Møre og Romsdal, Norway. The town is the commercial and administrative centre of Ulstein and as such, Ulsteinvik contains 74% of the municipality's population. The town has a population (2018) of 5,788 ...

History

Since 1838, Eiksund was administratively a part of the municipality of Sande, despite being separated from the rest of Sande by the sea (see

formannskapsdistrikt () is the name for Norwegian local self-government districts that were legally enacted on 1 January 1838. This system of municipalities was created in a bill approved by the Parliament of Norway and signed into law by King Carl Johan on 14 January ...

law). On 1 January 1889, the Eiksund area and the island of Eika (population: 119) were transferred to Herøy. Then on 1 January 1964, Eiksund and Eika (population: 222) were transferred to Ulstein.

Transportation

Until 2008, Eiksund was connected to Rjåneset in the neighbouring municipality of

Ørsta is a List of municipalities of Norway, municipality in Møre og Romsdal Counties of Norway, county, Norway. It is part of the Sunnmøre Districts of Norway, region of Western Norway. The administrative centre of the municipality is the Ørsta ( ...

on the mainland by a

ferry A ferry is a ship, watercraft or amphibious vehicle used to carry passengers, and sometimes vehicles and cargo, across a body of water. A passenger ferry with many stops, such as in Venice, Italy, is sometimes called a water bus or water taxi ...

, since there were no road connections to Eiksund on the island of Hareidlandet. In 2005, the

Eiksund Bridge The Eiksund Bridge ( no, Eiksundbrua) is a cantilever bridge in Ulstein Municipality in the Sunnmøre region of Møre og Romsdal county, Norway. The bridge is connected to the Eiksund Tunnel as part of the ''Eiksund Sambandet'' which joins sev ...

connected Eiksund to the nearby island of Eika. On 23 February 2008, the

Eiksund Tunnel The Eiksund tunnel ( no, Eiksundtunnelen) is an undersea tunnel in Møre og Romsdal county, Norway, which runs under the Vartdalsfjorden connecting the municipalities of Ørsta and Ulstein. The tunnel is long and reaches a depth of below sea l ...

was opened by the Norwegian Minister of Transport and Communications,

Liv Signe Navarsete Liv Signe Navarsete (born 23 October 1958 in Sogndal) is a Norwegian politician from the Centre Party. She has served as county governor of Vestland county since 2022. She previously served as Minister of Local Government from 2009 to 2013, Min ...

. The

undersea tunnel An underwater tunnel is a tunnel which is partly or wholly constructed under the sea or a river. They are often used where building a bridge or operating a ferry link is unviable, or to provide competition or relief for existing bridges or ferry li ...

connects Eika (and thus Eiksund) to the mainland in Ørsta. The Eiksund Tunnel is the world's deepest road tunnel, with its lowest point at below sea level.

References

Villages in Møre og Romsdal Ulstein {{MøreRomsdal-geo-stub