Lofthus is a village in the municipality of

Ullensvang Ullensvang is a Municipalities of Norway, municipality in Vestland Counties of Norway, county, Norway. It is located in the Districts of Norway, traditional district of Hardanger. The administrative centre is the Odda (town), town of Odda. Some o ...

, which is located in the

Hardanger Hardanger is a traditional district in the western part of Norway, dominated by the Hardangerfjord and its inner branches of the Sørfjorden and the Eid Fjord. It consists of the municipalities of Ullensvang, Eidfjord, Ulvik and Kvam, and is ...

region of

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 lies along the eastern shore of the Sørfjorden, along

Norwegian National Road 13 National Road 13 (, ) is a national road which runs from the town of Stavanger in Rogaland county to the village of Sogndalsfjøra in Vestland county. The route is long and runs south–north through Rogaland and Vestland counties, following ...

. Lofthus is located about south of the village of

Kinsarvik Kinsarvik is a village in the municipality of Ullensvang in Vestland county, Norway. The village is located at the end of a small bay at the confluence of the Sørfjorden and the Eid Fjord, where they join to form the main branch of the Hardang ...

and about north of the town of

Odda Odda () is a list of former municipalities of Norway, former municipality in the old Hordaland counties of Norway, county, Norway. The municipality existed from 1913 until its dissolution in 2020 when it was merged into Ullensvang Municipality i ...

. The village of Lofthus has a population (2013) of 556, giving the village 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 . Lofthus is a tourist area with hotels and camping sites. There is also a significant amount of fruit farming in the area, and so Lofthus is home to a national fruit research centre. The most popular fruit grown in this area is the

cherry A cherry is the fruit of many plants of the genus ''Prunus'', and is a fleshy drupe (stone fruit). Commercial cherries are obtained from cultivars of several species, such as the sweet '' Prunus avium'' and the sour '' Prunus cerasus''. The na ...

. The medieval Ullensvang Church is located in this village, as is the

folk high school Folk high schools (also ''adult education center'') are institutions for adult education that generally do not grant academic degrees, though certain courses might exist leading to that goal. They are most commonly found in Nordic countries and i ...

Notable people

Notable people that were born or lived in Lofthus include: * Halldor O. Opedal (1895–1986), folkorist *

Elsa Garmann Andersen Elsa Garmann Andersen (21 November 1891 – 12 September 1964), sometimes referred to as Elsa Garmann-Anderssen, was a Norwegian amateur photographer active in Bergen's Camera Club in the late 1920s. She was a qualified architect from the Norweg ...

(1891–1964) architect and photographer

Media gallery

File:Lofthus1.jpg, View of Lofthus File:278. Hardanger, Parti af Ullensvang og Folgefonnen - NB bldsa AL0278.jpg, Old picture of Lofthus File:Ullensvang Church.jpg, The medieval Ullensvang Church

References

{{use dmy dates, date=June 2020 Ullensvang Villages in Vestland