Hvalba ( da, Kvalbø) is a village and a municipality in the

Faroe Islands The Faroe Islands ( ), or simply the Faroes ( fo, Føroyar ; da, Færøerne ), are a North Atlantic island group and an autonomous territory of the Kingdom of Denmark. They are located north-northwest of Scotland, and about halfway bet ...

, which consists of Hvalba, Nes-Hvalba and

Sandvík Sandvík (pronounced , "Sandy Bay"; da, Sandvig) is the northernmost village of the island of Suðuroy in the Faroe Islands. It is situated on the northern side of a shallow fjord. The village was previously known as Hvalvík (''Bay of Whales'') ...

. The village spreads around the bottom of a deep inlet, Hvalbiarfjørður, in the northeast of Suðuroy.

Population

Hvalba is one of the larger

village A village is a clustered human settlement or community, larger than a hamlet but smaller than a town (although the word is often used to describe both hamlets and smaller towns), with a population typically ranging from a few hundred ...

s in the

. The total population of Hvalba Municipality (''Hvalbiar Kommuna'') was 674 as of March 2022; the population of Hvalba and Nes was 607 and the population of

was 67. The small village Nes is often called Nes-Hvalba, because there are two other villages with the same name. Nes is located on the southern arm of the fjord Hvalbiarfjørður, opposite of Hvalba. Nes does not have its own postal code. Hvalba has one supermarket, a fast food shop and a few more shops. Some of the villagers work as coalminers; Hvalba is the only place in the Faroes which still has active coalmine industry, although in very small scale. There are two harbours and some fish factories in Hvalba, both harbours are on the northern side of the bay. There is a boat harbour in Nes and a small harbour in

. The municipality plans to make a new marina between the two harbors on a place which is called ''Á Hamranesi''. Some trawlers belong to the village, they deliver fish for the fish factory. Some people work in other villages i.e. at the Suduroy Hospital in

Tvøroyri Tvøroyri is a village on the north side of the Trongisvágsfjørður on the east coast of Suðuroy island in the Faroe Islands. Together with Froðba, Trongisvágur, Líðin and Øravík it forms Tvøroyri Municipality. The village is considered ...

or at the Faroe Islands Ferry and Buss Transportation Company including the ferry Smyril, which sails between Suðuroy and Tórshavn, but there are also a few independent small companies in Hvalba, i.e. IT supporters, carpenters, transport company, dietitian, internet shop etc. Hvalba is located on the east side of the island but the inlet is so deep that the distance to the west coast is quite short, so the island almost splits into two islands. There are two isthmuses in Hvalba:

Hvalbiareiði Hvalbiareiði is also called Fiskieiði, it is located on the west coast of Suðuroy, west of the village Hvalba. History Hvalbiareiði has been an important harbour for Hvalba in Suðuroy. Hvalba is located on an isthmus in the northern par ...

(also called Fiskieiði) and Norðbergseiði (also called Á Drátti). There is a memorial in Hvalba, it is located on the northern side of the fjord, just before one comes to the first harbour, not far from the bottom of the bay. The memorial is made of stone, the stone work was made by Lars and Helmut Larsen from Tórshavn, it was raised in 1963 in memory of people from Hvalba who lost their life at sea or by other accidents, i.e. by accidents in the coal mines or by falling down from the island

Lítla Dímun Lítla Dímun is a small, uninhabited island between the islands of Suðuroy and Stóra Dímun in the Faroe Islands. It is the smallest of the main 18 islands, being less than a square kilometre (247 acres) in area, and is the only uninhabited ...

or from one of the mountains which surround the village.

Connected by tunnels

Two tunnels connect Hvalba to its neighbouring villages. The southbound

Hvalbiartunnilin The Hvalbiartunnilin (Hvalba Tunnel) is the name applied to two tunnels on the island of Suðuroy, the most southerly of the Faroe Islands. The original Hvalbiartunnilin is the oldest tunnel in the country, while the new Hvalbiartunnilin is the n ...

(1450 m) leads to

Trongisvágur Trongisvágur ( da, Trangisvåg) is a village on the island of Suduroy in the Faroe Islands. Trongisvágur is the village in the bottom of Trongisvágsfjørður (fjord) on the east coast of Suduroy. Trongisvágur and the neighbouring villages ...

and

. The northbound Sandvíkartunnilin (1500 m) leads to

. Construction of a new tunnel to Trongisvágur started in 2019 and will finish in 2021.

Hvalbiareiði and Norðbergseiði

On the west coast there is a place of call that makes it possible to go fishing in small boats from both sides of the island. The place has two names; it is called

or Fiskieiði. The name Hvalbiareiði refers to the name of the village Hvalba, Fiskieiði refers to the fact that this place used to be a fish harbour. There are still a few boat houses there, but most of them are ruins. Most of the men of Hvalba are member of the crews of one of the trawlers of the village. Many people from Hvalba own their share of these trawlers. There is another "Eiði" in Hvalba, it is called Norðbergseiði, named after a mountain nearby, which is called Norðberg. Norðbergseiði is the northern one of the two "eidi". Norðbergseiði and Hvalbiareiði are separated by the mountain Grímsfjall (the Mountain of Grímur).

Tourism

Tourism has been developing over the past few years. Some people from Hvalba started to arrange boat trips to the uninhabited island

in 2009, and the same year some men from Hvalba started to offer ''síging'', which is a kind of

rappelling Abseiling ( ; ), also known as rappelling ( ; ), is the controlled descent of a steep slope, such as a rock face, by moving down a rope. When abseiling the person descending controls their own movement down the rope, in contrast to low ...

(abseiling) for tourists on Norðbergseiði. There have also been arranged

BBQ Barbecue or barbeque (informally BBQ in the UK, US, and Canada, barbie in Australia and braai in South Africa) is a term used with significant regional and national variations to describe various cooking methods that use live fire and smoke t ...

evenings with blues music on Fiskieiði combined with boat trips along the cliffs of Hvalba and rappelling.Sudurras1.com
/ref> The coal mines are also a tourist attraction. There are high mountains around Hvalba, some tourists enjoy going for hiking trips from Nes-Hvalba via the gorge Káragjógv to Trongisvágur. There are cairns, which people can follow. Before the tunnel came in 1963 the path along the cairns was the only way to get from Hvalba to

and the part of the island which is south of Hvalba. There are now public toilets in Hvalba and in

Coal Mines

In the mountains around the southbound tunnel brown coal has been extracted from mines since the 1770s. The

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 ...

was an important source of energy on the Faroe Islands until the end of

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

. A few miners are still extracting coal from the mines. Today there is only one active

coal mine Coal mining is the process of extracting coal from the ground. Coal is valued for its energy content and since the 1880s has been widely used to generate electricity. Steel and cement industries use coal as a fuel for extraction of iron from ...

left. They closed down one of the older mines early in 2010 and started to excavate a new one in 2010.

Pirates and "Turkargravir"

Pirates ravaged Hvalba, as other villages on Suðuroy, in the 17th century. In 1629 three North-

Africa Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent, after Asia in both cases. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of Earth's total surface area ...

n pirate ships attacked the village. When they left the village after the ravage two of the ships ran aground on some rocks and were shattered by the surf. Tradition says that more than 300 bodies washed ashore. By the shore there is a place called ‘Turkargravir’. Here all the bodies were buried. 30 women and children were taken away to be sold as slaves in North Africa. On the Faroe Islands a collection was organized to raise enough money to buy back the people. This was not successful and the people never returned to the islands.

Sports

The local football team is Royn Hvalba (Bóltfelagið Royn).

Gallery

Image:Hvalba_scenery.jpg, Hvalbiarfjørður,

island in the background. Image:Hvalba sunset, Faroe Islands.jpg, Sunset in Hvalba, seen from the sea. Image:Nes at Hvalba at noon, Faroe Islands.jpg, Nes at Hvalba at noon Image:Coalmine.Hvalba.5.jpg, The coalmines south of Hvalba Image:Grímsfjall seen from Nordbergseidi, Hvalba, Faroe Islands.jpg, Norðbergseiði, the northern ''eidi'' of Hvalba. Image:Hvalbiareidi, Hvalba, Faroe Islands.jpg,

, the southern ''eidi'' of Hvalba and Grímsfjall (mountain). Image:Hvalba beach peaceful, Faroe Islands.jpg, The sandy beach of Hvalba. Image:Nes at Hvalba with beach and Stora Dimun, Faroe Islands.jpg, The sandy beach of Nes at Hvalba, view to Stóra Dímun (island). Image:Memorial Lost at Sea in Hvalba Suðuroy Faroe Islands.JPG, Memorial in Hvalba in memory of people lost at sea and people who died in other accidents i.e. in the coal mines and by falling down from

or a cliff near Hvalba. Image:Prestfjall a Mountain in Hvalba Suðuroy Faroe Islands.jpg, Prestfjall (mountain) and Hvalba.

References

External links

Faroeislands.dk: Hvalba
Images and description of all cities on the Faroe Islands.
The Municipality of HvalbaPhotos on Flickr tagged with HvalbaWebsite of Lítla Dímun
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hvalba Municipalities of the Faroe Islands Populated places in the Faroe Islands Populated coastal places in the Faroe Islands Ports and harbours of the Faroe Islands Suðuroy