Country Norway Language spoken www.tvedestrand.kommune.no Area 217.95 km2 | District Sorlandet Mayor Jan Dukene (Tvedestrand Tverrpolitiske Liste) | |
Tvedestrand is a town and municipality in Aust-Agder county, Norway. It is located in the traditional district of Sorlandet. The administrative center is the village of Tvedestrand.
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Map of Tvedestrand
The town has a picturesque, white-painted town center with irregular streets climbing steep hills around the harbor. The natural beauty of the area makes it a popular tourist destination. The municipality includes numerous islands, which makes it a very popular place in the summer for boaters, who can easily find an island or an inlet for themselves which provides peace and quiet. The number of people in the county at least double in the summer, due to vacationers. There are approximately 1,700 summer cottages ("hytter") around the fjord. Tvedestrand has over 2,000 buildings that are more than 100 years old.
History
The church at Holt probably dates from the twelfth century and has an ancient baptismal font. The interior was decorated by Torsten Hoff.
Around 1600 Tvedestrand was mainly a harbour for the Berge and Tveite farms’ boats, hence the name Tvedestrand (strand means beach or coast in Norwegian).
Lyngor was the site of the Battle of Lyngor between English and Dano-Norwegian forces during the Napoleonic Wars resulting in the sinking of the frigate of the Dano-Norwegian forces, Najaden by the British ship-of-the-line Dictator in 1812.
The town as it now exists was built in the 19th century as a harbour for Norways longest existing iron works, Naes jernverk. Lying in the parish of Holt, Naes jernverk has one of the largest and most significant of the surviving mansions in Sorlandet, built by Ulrich Schnell. Schnell bought up various iron works in the neighborhood and set up several sawmills in the district. He obtained a special license to export timber directly from Tvedestrand, establishing the basis for an international harbor.
Geography
Tvedestrand is a town and municipality that lies between Arendal to the west and Risor to the east. The municipality also borders on Froland, Amli and Vegarshei. The municipality assumed its present borders in 1960 with the consolidation of Dypvag and Holt municipalities and the port at Tvedestrand.
Tvedestrand belongs to the geographical region of Sorlandet. The town itself lies at the end of a picturesque fjord, Oksefjorden (originally Ufsefjorden, meaning the fjord with steep, rocky sides), while the municipality also encompasses the islands Boroy and Sandoy as well as the unique village of Lyngor. Lyngor was acclaimed "Europes best preserved village" by Europa Nostra in 1991.
The Storelva, one of the Southern Coasts best salmon and sea trout rivers, flows past Nes Ironworks, in Tvedestrand. Tvedestrand municipality includes 162 islands, with a collected coastline of 214 kilometres (133 mi).