Kyrkjebø (historically: ''Kirkebø'') is a village in

Høyanger Municipality Høyanger () is a List of municipalities of Norway, municipality in Vestland Counties of Norway, county, Norway. It is located in the Districts of Norway, traditional district of Sogn. The administrative center is the village of Høyanger (villa ...

Vestland Vestland is a Counties of Norway, county in Norway. The county is located in Western Norway, and its administrative centre is Bergen, where the executive and political leadership is based. The County governor (Norway), County Governor is based in ...

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 on the northern shore of the

Sognefjorden The Sognefjord or Sognefjorden (, ), nicknamed the King of the Fjords (), is the longest and deepest fjord in Norway. Located in Vestland county in Western Norway, it stretches inland from the ocean to the small village of Skjolden in the muni ...

, about halfway between the small Vadheimsfjorden and Høyangsfjorden arms which branch off the main fjord. The village sits about to the west of the village of Austreim, about to the southwest of the village of

Høyanger Høyanger () is a municipality in Vestland county, Norway. It is located in the traditional district of Sogn. The administrative center is the village of Høyanger. Other villages in Høyanger municipality include Austreim, Bjordal, Kyrkjeb� ...

(the municipal centre), and southeast of the village of

Vadheim Vadheim is a village in the municipality of Høyanger in Vestland county, Norway. It is located on the north shore of the Sognefjorden, along the small Vadheimsfjorden branch. The European route E39 highway runs through the village. It is locat ...

, where the

European route E39 European route E39 is the designation of a north–south road in Norway and Denmark from Klett, just south of Trondheim (city), Trondheim, to Aalborg via Bergen, Stavanger and Kristiansand. In total, there are nine ferries, more than any other ...

highway passes through the municipality. The village has a population (2019) of 269 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 . The village was 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 old municipality of

Kyrkjebø Kyrkjebø is a List of former municipalities of Norway, former municipality in the old Sogn og Fjordane Counties of Norway, county, Norway. The municipality existed from 1858 until 1964 when it became part of the new municipality of Høyanger w ...

which existed from 1858 until its dissolution in 1964.

Name

The village is named after the old ''Kirkebø'' farm, since

Kyrkjebø Church Kyrkjebø Church () is a parish church of the Church of Norway in Høyanger Municipality in Vestland county, Norway. It is located in the village of Kyrkjebø. It is the church for the Kyrkjebø parish which is part of the Sunnfjord prosti (dea ...

was located there. The first element of the name is identical with the name for "

church Church may refer to: Religion * Church (building), a place/building for Christian religious activities and praying * Church (congregation), a local congregation of a Christian denomination * Church service, a formalized period of Christian comm ...

", and the second element of the name is identical with the word for "

farm A farm (also called an agricultural holding) is an area of land that is devoted primarily to agricultural processes with the primary objective of producing food and other crops; it is the basic facility in food production. The name is used fo ...

". It was named this because it was the farm where the church was located. From 1890 until 1917 the name was spelled ''Kirkebø'' (using the

Bokmål Bokmål () (, ; ) is one of the official written standards for the Norwegian language, alongside Nynorsk. Bokmål is by far the most used written form of Norwegian today, as it is adopted by 85% to 90% of the population in Norway. There is no cou ...

spelling) and then in 1917 it was changed to ''Kyrkjebø'' (using the

Nynorsk Nynorsk (; ) is one of the two official written standards of the Norwegian language, the other being Bokmål. From 12 May 1885, it became the state-sanctioned version of Ivar Aasen's standard Norwegian language (''Landsmål''), parallel to the Da ...

spelling).

References

Villages in Vestland Høyanger {{Vestland-geo-stub