Official Name: | Å |
Other Name: | Å i Lofoten |
Settlement Type: | Village |
Pushpin Map: | Nordland#Norway |
Pushpin Label: | Å |
Pushpin Label Position: | left |
Subdivision Type: | Country |
Subdivision Name: | Norway |
Subdivision Name1: | Northern Norway |
Subdivision Name2: | Nordland |
Subdivision Type3: | District |
Subdivision Name3: | Lofoten |
Subdivision Type4: | Municipality |
Subdivision Name4: | Moskenes Municipality |
Utc Offset1: | +01:00 |
Utc Offset1 Dst: | +02:00 |
Blank1 Name: | Climate classification |
Blank1 Info: | Cfc |
Postal Code Type: | Post Code |
Postal Code: | 8392 Sørvågen |
Coordinates: | 67.8796°N 12.984°W |
Elevation M: | 6 |
Elevation Footnotes: | [1] |
Area Total Sq Mi: | 3 |
Å (in Norwegian pronounced as /oː/, from meaning "stream") or Å i Lofoten [2] is a village in Moskenes Municipality in Nordland county, Norway. It is located about southwest of the village of Sørvågen on the island of Moskenesøya, towards the southern end of the Lofoten archipelago. It is connected to the rest of the archipelago by the European route E10 highway, which ends here. This part of the highway is also called King Olav's Road.
Until the 1990s, Å was mainly a small fishing village specializing in stockfish, but since then tourism has taken over as the main economic activity. The town features the Lofoten Stockfish Museum and the Norwegian Fishing Village Museum as two big tourist attractions.
The village (originally a farm) is first known to be mentioned in 1567 as "Aa". The name is from Old Norse word "á" which means "(small) river". The name was spelled "Aa" until 1917 when the Norwegian language reform changed the letter "aa" to "å". The village is sometimes referred to as Å i Lofoten ("i" means "in") to distinguish it from other meanings that go by Å (see Å (disambiguation)).
In 2008, Joanna Lumley visited Å in the Lofoten Islands, for the BBC One television documentary Joanna Lumley: In the Land of the Northern Lights; where she learned about the village's fishing heritage, during her journey to see the aurora borealis.[3]
Since the name is just Å it's very popular