Nærøy

Nærøy is a municipality in Nord-Trøndelag county, Norway. Nærøy is part of the Namdalen region. Norway's smallest town, Kolvereid, is the administration centre of the municipality. Some villages in Nærøy include Abelvær, Foldereid, Gravvik, Lund, Ottersøy, Salsbruket, Steine, and Torstad.

General information

Nærøy was established as a municipality on 1 January 1838 (see formannskapsdistrikt). On 1 July 1869, the western district was separated from Nærøy to become the new municipality of Vikten. This left Nærøy with 1,477 residents. On 1 January 1902, an unpopulated area of Kolvereid was transferred to Nærøy. On 1 January 1964, the municipalities of Gravvik, Kolvereid, and most of Foldereid were merged with Nærøy to form a new, larger municipality of Nærøy. Prior to the merger, Nærøy had 2,182 residents and after the merger there were 6,241 residents.

Name

The Old Norse form of the name was Njarðøy. The first element is maybe the stem form of the name of the Norse god Njord (but it is suspicious that it is not in the genitive case). The last element is øy which means "island". Historically, the name has had varying spellings such as Nærø or Nærøen.