Mollösund is an old

fishing village A fishing village is a village, usually located near a fishing ground, with an economy based on catching fish and harvesting seafood. The continents and islands around the world have coastlines totalling around 356,000 kilometres (221,000 m ...

and a

locality Locality may refer to: * Locality (association), an association of community regeneration organizations in England * Locality (linguistics) * Locality (settlement) * Suburbs and localities (Australia), in which a locality is a geographic subdivis ...

situated in

Orust Municipality Orust Municipality (''Orusts kommun'') is a municipality in Västra Götaland County in western Sweden. Its seat is located in the town of Henån, with an approximate population of 1,800. The municipality includes Sweden's third largest island O ...

Västra Götaland County Västra Götaland County ( sv, Västra Götalands län) is a county or '' län'' on the western coast of Sweden. The county is the second most populous of Sweden's counties and it comprises 49 municipalities (''kommuner''). Its population of 1 ...

Sweden Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden,The United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names states that the country's formal name is the Kingdom of SwedenUNGEGN World Geographical Names, Sweden./ref> is a Nordic country located on ...

with 236 inhabitants in 2010. It is located on the southwest tip of

in the outer

archipelago An archipelago ( ), sometimes called an island group or island chain, is a chain, cluster, or collection of islands, or sometimes a sea containing a small number of scattered islands. Examples of archipelagos include: the Indonesian Archi ...

’s west coast. Records of permanent settlements date back to the early 16th century. The traditionally predominant catches were

herring Herring are forage fish, mostly belonging to the family of Clupeidae. Herring often move in large schools around fishing banks and near the coast, found particularly in shallow, temperate waters of the North Pacific and North Atlantic Oceans, i ...

and the

common ling The common ling (''Molva molva''), also known as the white ling or simply the ling, is a large member of the family Lotidae, a group of cod-like fishes. It resembles the related rocklings, but it is much larger and has a single barbel. This spe ...

, used mostly to prepare the dish

lutefisk ''Lutefisk'' (Norwegian, in Northern and parts of Central Norway, in Southern Norway; sv, lutfisk ; fi, lipeäkala ; literally "lye fish") is dried whitefish (normally cod, but ling and burbot are also used). It is made from aged stockfi ...

. During the latter part of the 19th century, approximately 30

sailing ships A sailing ship is a sea-going vessel that uses sails mounted on masts to harness the power of wind and propel the vessel. There is a variety of sail plans that propel sailing ships, employing square-rigged or fore-and-aft sails. Some ships c ...

berthed in Mollösund transported raw materials to and from the region, including

coal Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock, formed as rock strata called coal seams. Coal is mostly carbon with variable amounts of other elements, chiefly hydrogen, sulfur, oxygen, and nitrogen. Coal is formed when dea ...

iron Iron () is a chemical element with symbol Fe (from la, ferrum) and atomic number 26. It is a metal that belongs to the first transition series and group 8 of the periodic table. It is, by mass, the most common element on Earth, right in f ...

, and

salt Salt is a mineral composed primarily of sodium chloride (NaCl), a chemical compound belonging to the larger class of salts; salt in the form of a natural crystalline mineral is known as rock salt or halite. Salt is present in vast quantitie ...

. Commercial fishing from Mollösund has all but shut down in recent years, but preparation of lutefisk with imported products still occurs on a small scale. The area is home to approximately 277 year-round residentsTätorter; arealer, befolkning - Statistik från SCB
/ref> and is a popular tourist destination during the summer months.

References

Populated places in Västra Götaland County Populated places in Orust Municipality {{VästraGötaland-geo-stub