Sommarøy or Sommerøya is an old

fishing village A fishing village is a village, usually located near a fishing ground, with an economy based on catching fish and harvesting seafood. The continents and islands around the world have coastlines totalling around 356,000 kilometres (221,000 ...

in the western part of

Tromsø Municipality Tromsø Municipality is a List of municipalities of Norway, municipality in Troms county, Norway. The administrative centre of the municipality is the Tromsø (city), city of Tromsø. Other notable settlements in the municipality include the vi ...

Troms Troms (; ; ; ) is a Counties of Norway, county in northern Norway. It borders Finnmark county to the northeast and Nordland county in the southwest. Norrbotten Län in Sweden is located to the south and further southeast is a shorter border with ...

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 ...

. It is located about west of the city of Tromsø and is a popular tourist destination due to its white sand beaches and scenery. The village has a population (2023) of 304 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

of Sommarøy covers the island of

Store Sommarøya Store Sommarøya or Sommarøya is an island in Tromsø Municipality in Troms county, Norway. The island is located about west of the city of Tromsø and is a popular tourist destination due to its white sand beaches and scenery. The island i ...

as well as part of the neighboring island of Hillesøya and smaller surrounding islands. The village is a typical fishing village with great local fishing fleets and substantial fish processing and other industries. Tourism is also important in Sommarøy. There is a hotel and rental cabins are available.

History

The original settlement site was on the neighboring island of Hillesøya where the old Hillesøy Church was located. This site was where successive churches have stood from the

Middle Ages In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the 5th to the late 15th centuries, similarly to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire and ...

until the late 1800s when the church was moved to Brensholmen on the island of Kvaløya. The main centre of the village moved to

island around 1900.

Time

On the island of Sommarøy, the sun does not set from 18 May to 26 July, a full 69 days. This is then followed by long polar nights from November to January, when the sun does not rise at all due to the location north of the

Arctic Circle The Arctic Circle is one of the two polar circles, and the northernmost of the five major circle of latitude, circles of latitude as shown on maps of Earth at about 66° 34' N. Its southern counterpart is the Antarctic Circle. The Arctic Circl ...

. In June 2019, Innovation Norway conducted a marketing campaigncalled

fake news Fake news or information disorder is false or misleading information (misinformation, disinformation, propaganda, and hoaxes) claiming the aesthetics and legitimacy of news. Fake news often has the aim of damaging the reputation of a person ...

by some claiming that local inhabitants wanted Sommarøy to declare itself as the world's first time-free zone and had petitioned the Norwegian government to abolish

civil time In modern usage, civil time refers to statutory time as designated by civilian authorities. Modern civil time is generally national standard time in a time zone at a UTC offset, fixed offset from Coordinated Universal Time (UTC), possibly adjusted ...

on the island. The story was covered in more than 1650 articles which potentially reached up to 1.2 billion people. The value of this coverage was estimated at 11.4 million USD, whereas Innovation Norway spent less than US$60,000 on the campaign.

Gallery

sommaroy panorama.jpg, Hillesøya and Sommarøy islands Guraholmen.jpg, Sandy beach on Sommarøy Sommarøybrua.jpg, Sommarøy Bridge Håja Sommarøy.jpg, seen from Sommarøy

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Sommaroy Populated places of Arctic Norway Tromsø Villages in Troms