Borre is a village in

Horten Municipality Horten () is a municipality in Vestfold county, Norway. It is located in the traditional district of Jarlsberg. The administrative centre of the municipality is the town of Horten. Other population centers in Horten Municipality include the t ...

Vestfold Vestfold () is a county and a current electoral district in Norway. Located on the western shore of the Oslofjord, it borders Buskerud and Telemark counties. The county administration is located in Tønsberg, Norway's oldest city, and the larg ...

county,

Norway Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic countries, Nordic country located on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and the archipelago of Svalbard also form part of the Kingdom of ...

. The village is located about south of the town of Horten, along the shores of the

Ytre Oslofjord Ytre Oslofjord () is part of a fjord in eastern Norway. The Ytre Oslofjord is the outer part of the Oslofjord which is south of point where the Hurumlandet peninsula splits the fjord between the Drøbak Sound (the strait where the fjord narrows ...

. It sits about north of the town of

Åsgårdstrand Åsgårdstrand (historically spelled ''Aasgaardstrand'') is a small port List of towns and cities in Norway, town in both Horten Municipality, Horten and Tønsberg Municipality, Tønsberg municipalities in Vestfold county, Norway. The town is loc ...

and about east of the village of Skoppum. The village had a population (2013) of 1056 and a

population density Population density (in agriculture: Standing stock (disambiguation), standing stock or plant density) is a measurement of population per unit land area. It is mostly applied to humans, but sometimes to other living organisms too. It is a key geog ...

of . Since 2013, the population and area data for this village area has not been separately tracked by

Statistics Norway Statistics Norway (, abbreviated to ''SSB'') is the Norwegian statistics bureau. It was established in 1876. Relying on a staff of about 1,000, Statistics Norway publish about 1,000 new statistical releases every year on its web site. All rele ...

and it is considered part of the town of Horten.

History

The village of Borre has been the site of the Borre Church and headquarters of the Borre

prestegjeld A ''prestegjeld'' was a geographic and administrative area within the Church of Norway (''Den Norske Kirke'') roughly equivalent to a parish. This traditional designation was in use for centuries to divide the kingdom into ecclesiastical areas tha ...

(parish) for centuries. On 1 January 1838, the parish became a civil municipality after the passage of the

formannskapsdistrikt () was the name of a Norwegian self-governing municipality. The name was used from the establishment these municipalities in 1838 until the name fell out of use in 1863. The municipalities had their legal basis from two laws enacted on 14 Jan ...

law. The village became the

administrative centre An administrative centre is a seat of regional administration or local government, or a county town, or the place where the central administration of a commune, is located. In countries with French as the administrative language, such as Belgi ...

of the new

Borre Municipality Borre is a former municipality in Vestfold county, Norway. The municipality existed from 1838 until its dissolution in 1988. Borre was merged with Horten in 1988, and the new municipality bore the name Borre until after a public referendum reg ...

. In 1988, Borre Municipality was merged with the town of Horten and it became the new

. On 1 June 2002, the name of the municipality was changed to Horten, following a referendum held in conjunction with the 2001 parliamentary election. The referendum was a close call with 6,557 votes for the name Horten and 6,218 votes for Borre.

Name

The village is named ''Borre'' () since the first Borre Church was built there. The name has an uncertain meaning. The first element may derives from which means "side" or "edge" or from the word which means "castle" or "fortified place". The last element may come from which means "rest" or which means "corner".

Attractions

Borrevatnet

The large lake Borrevannet lies about north of the village. It is a large freshwater lake which measures long and wide (at its widest). At the south end is a designated bird sanctuary where you can see numerous water birds, waders, and many other bird types. The lake houses many varieties of fish including pike,

perch Perch is a common name for freshwater fish from the genus ''Perca'', which belongs to the family Percidae of the large order Perciformes. The name comes from , meaning the type species of this genus, the European perch (''P. fluviatilis'') ...

, and

eel Eels are ray-finned fish belonging to the order Anguilliformes (), which consists of eight suborders, 20 families, 164 genera, and about 1000 species. Eels undergo considerable development from the early larval stage to the eventual adult stage ...

. The association that manages the lake, ''Borrevannets Grundeierforegning'', uses the fishing card sales to promote water quality improvement initiatives and fishing research projects. It is also possible to rent one of the privately owned cabins surrounding the lake such as the ''Asketun hytte''. The lake is a

reservoir A reservoir (; ) is an enlarged lake behind a dam, usually built to water storage, store fresh water, often doubling for hydroelectric power generation. Reservoirs are created by controlling a watercourse that drains an existing body of wa ...

for the nearby town of Horten. The pumping station is on the east side of the lake. The pumping station can be visited and it has an activity center which offers a large number of educational programs, primarily but not exclusively designed for schools.

Borre Church

The medieval Borre Church is located in the village.

Borre mounds

Borre National Park
covers of land just east of the village. Its collection of burial mounds include a large collection of royal tombs. The park includes the Borre mound cemetery (''Borrehaugene'') from the Old Norse words ''borró'' and ''haugr'' meaning mound. The

Borre style Viking art, also known commonly as Norse art, is a term widely accepted for the art of Scandinavian Norsemen and Viking settlements further afield—particularly in the British Isles and Iceland—during the Viking Age of the 8th-11th centuries ...

of Norse art is named after a boat grave from Borre.

References

{{use dmy dates, date=February 2024 Horten Villages in Vestfold