Hnífsdalur () is a small village in the municipality of

Ísafjarðarbær Ísafjarðarbær () is a municipality of Iceland in the Westfjords region, created in 1996 from Flateyrarhreppur, Ísafjarðarkaupstaður, Mosvallahreppur, Mýrahreppur, Suðureyrarhreppur and Þingeyrarhreppur. Geography The principal settl ...

, located between

Bolungarvík Bolungarvík (, regionally also ) is a small town and the only built-up area in the municipality of Bolungarvíkurkaupstaður in the northwest of Iceland, located on the Westfjords peninsula, approximately from the town of Ísafjörður and from ...

and

Ísafjörður Ísafjörður (pronounced , meaning ''ice fjord'', literally ''fjord of ices'') is a town in the northwest of Iceland. The oldest part of Ísafjörður with the town centre is located on a spit of sand, or ''eyri'', in Skutulsfjörður, a fjord ...

. The literal meaning of the name is "Knife's Valley". Some guess that the thin or sharp line of the mountain range resembles that of a knife. No mention is made of the place in the '' Book of Settlement''.

History

In 1910 an avalanche killed 20 people in Hnífsdalur, one of the deadliest in Iceland in the 20th century. On 25 September 2010,

Bolungarvíkurgöng Bolungarvíkurgöng (, regionally also ) is a tunnel in northwestern Iceland, located in Westfjords along Route 61. It has a length of and opened on 25 September 2010. One of the main objectives of building the tunnel was to replace one of Icela ...

, a 5,156 m (16,916 ft) tunnel between Hnífsdalur and neighbouring town

, was opened.

References

Populated places in Westfjords {{Iceland-geo-stub