Vardø

Vardø kommune

Municipality

Coat of arms

Finnmark within
Norway

Vardø within Finnmark

Coordinates: 70°22′14″N 31°01′27″E / 70.37056°N 31.02417°ECoordinates: 70°22′14″N 31°01′27″E / 70.37056°N 31.02417°E

Country

Administrative centre

Vardø

Government

• Mayor (2015)

Robert Jensen (Labour Party (Norway))

Area

• Total

600.48 km² (231.85 sq mi)

• Land

585.45 km² (226.04 sq mi)

• Water

15.03 km² (5.80 sq mi)

Area rank

183 in Norway

Population (2014)

• Total

2,119 (

from last year)

• Rank

327 in Norway

• Density

3.53/km² (9.1/sq mi)

• Change (10 years)

−11.6 %

Demonym(s)

Vardøværing

Time zone

CET (UTC+1)

• Summer (DST)

CEST (UTC+2)

ISO 3166 code

NO-2002

Official language form

Bokmål

Website

www.vardo.kommune.no

Data from Statistics Norway

Vardø (also Finnish: Vuoreija or Vuorea, Northern Sami: Várggát) is a municipality in Finnmark county in the extreme northeastern part of Norway. The administrative centre of the municipality is the town of Vardø. The other main settlement in Vardø is the village of Kiberg.

The town of Vardø and the rural district around it was established as a municipality on 1 January 1838 (see formannskapsdistrikt). The law required that all towns should be separated from their rural districts, but because of a low population and very few voters, this was impossible to carry out for Vardø in 1838. (See also Hammerfest and Vadsø.) The rural district of Vardø (Vardø landdistrikt–renamed Båtsfjord in 1957) was officially separated from the town of Vardø in 1868. Then on 1 January 1964, the eastern part of Båtsfjord was merged with the town of Vardø to create today's Vardø Municipality.

The Old Norse form of the name was Vargøy. The first element is vargr which means "wolf" and the last element is øy which means "island". The first element was later replaced (around 1500) with varða which means "cairn". Historically, the name was spelled Vardöe.

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Wikipedia