Jordalsgrenda is a small village in

Sunndal Municipality is a municipality in the Nordmøre region located in the northeast part of Møre og Romsdal county, Norway. The administrative center of the municipality is the village of Sunndalsøra. Other villages include Gjøra, Grøa, Hoelsand, Jordalsgre ...

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 ...

, with approximately 60 inhabitants. The place is located in a small valley along the west side of the Sunndalsfjorden on the highway that runs between the village of

Sunndalsøra is the administrative centre of Sunndal Municipality in Møre og Romsdal county, Norway. The village of Sunndalsøra lies at the mouth of the river Driva at the beginning of the Sunndalsfjord. Sunndalsøra is surrounded by steep mountains, such a ...

and the town of Molde. It is located about northwest of

Øksendalsøra Øksendalsøra is a village in Sunndal Municipality in Møre og Romsdal county, Norway. The village is located along the Sunndalsfjorden at the northern end of the Øksendalen valley. The village sits about northwest of the municipal centre of ...

. The highway that runs through Jordalsgrenda has a long tunnel connecting it to

Nesset Municipality Nesset is a former municipality in Møre og Romsdal county, Norway on the Romsdal Peninsula. The administrative centre was the village of Eidsvåg. Other population centers included Rausand, Boggestranda, Myklebostad, Eresfjord, and Eikesdalen. ...

to the north.

History

The place has been populated since the

Roman Iron Age The archaeology of Northern Europe studies the prehistory of Scandinavia and the adjacent North European Plain, roughly corresponding to the territories of modern Sweden, Norway, Denmark, northern Germany, Poland and the Netherlands. The regi ...

, but tracks of human activity, which can be dated from 1000 BC, have been found in the mountains around the district. The district was desolated most of the late 14th century because of the

Black Death The Black Death (also known as the Pestilence, the Great Mortality or the Plague) was a bubonic plague pandemic occurring in Western Eurasia and North Africa from 1346 to 1353. It is the most fatal pandemic recorded in human history, causi ...

Etymology

The name is derived from the ancient name of the river ( non, Hjórdœla) which flows through the village area and the

Old Norse Old Norse, Old Nordic, or Old Scandinavian, is a stage of development of North Germanic languages, North Germanic dialects before their final divergence into separate Nordic languages. Old Norse was spoken by inhabitants of Scandinavia and t ...

word ''dalr'' which means "

valley A valley is an elongated low area often running between Hill, hills or Mountain, mountains, which will typically contain a river or stream running from one end to the other. Most valleys are formed by erosion of the land surface by rivers ...

", so literally the "Hjórdœla river valley". The suffix ''-grenda'' simply means "area", however this is a newer addition to the name. Historically, it was spelled ''Hiordall'' and then by the 17th century was spelled ''Jordal''.

References

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

History

Etymology

See also

References