The West Norwegian Fjords is the common name of two
fjords in
Norway listed as a
World Heritage Site by
UNESCO: the
Geirangerfjord and the
Nærøyfjord.
Geography
Location
The World Heritage Site consists of two areas 120 km apart, located in south-west
Norway, north-west of the city of
Bergen, and part of the fjord landscape of western Norway extending over 500 km between
Stavanger
Stavanger (, , American English, US usually , ) is a city and municipalities of Norway, municipality in Norway. It is the fourth largest city and third largest metropolitan area in Norway (through conurbation with neighboring Sandnes) and the a ...
in the south and
Ã…ndalsnes in the north.
[.][.] The areas of
Geirangerfjord and
Nærøyfjordtotal 122 712 hectares (111 966 ha terrestrial and 10 746 ha marine).
The Geirangerfjord area is situated 60 km inland and constitutes the
Geirangerfjord itself as the upper end of
Storfjorden as well as
Tafjorden.
[.] The heritage cite lies in the county of
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 ...
, extending into the municipalities of
Fjord and
Stranda
Stranda is a municipality in Møre og Romsdal county, Norway. It is part of the Sunnmøre region. The administrative centre of the municipality is the village of Stranda. Stranda consists of three smaller villages and one larger central villag ...
. It covers 51Â 802Â ha, of which 46Â 151Â ha are terrestrial and 5Â 651Â ha are marine.
The
Nærøyfjord is situated 100 km inland and is the upper extremity of
Sognefjord.
[.] It extends into the counties of
Sogn og Fjordane (to the municipalities of
Aurland,
Vik and
Lærdal) and
Hordaland (into the municipality of
Voss). In total it covers 70Â 910Â ha : 65Â 815Â ha on land and 5Â 095Â ha are marine. It is crossed by
European route E16.
Climate
The two areas, though relatively distant, have a very similar climate, which is a transition between
oceanic and
continental climate
Continental climates often have a significant annual variation in temperature (warm summers and cold winters). They tend to occur in the middle latitudes (40 to 55 north), within large landmasses where prevailing winds blow overland bringing som ...
s,.
[.] The region is favourable to
microclimates. Snow persists from October to the end of May in the
mountains and the end of November to March in the
valleys. In winter, the sources of the
fjords are frozen for a period of one to three weeks.
Human Presence
Human geography
The area of Geirangerfjord had 230 inhabitants as of 2003, while Nærøyfjord had 243 inhabitants as of 2001.
[.]
Notes and References
*
World Heritage Centre
* Other references
Annexes
Bibliography
* .
* {{Cite book, url=http://whc.unesco.org/document/152009, title=Les Fjords de l'Ouest de la Norvège - Évaluation technique de l'UICN, date=2005, pages=10, id=Évaluation de l'UICN.
Related articles
*
List of Norwegian fjords
This list of Norwegian fjords shows many of the fjords in Norway. In total, there are about 1,190 fjords in Norway and the Svalbard islands. The sortable list includes the lengths and locations of those fjords.
Fjords
See also
* List of gla ...
*
Geirangerfjord
*
Nærøyfjord
Description on the World Heritage Site
World Heritage Sites in Norway