Kaupanger is a village situated along the northern shore of the

Sognefjorden The Sognefjord or Sognefjorden (, ), nicknamed the King of the Fjords (), is the longest and deepest fjord in Norway. Located in Vestland county in Western Norway, it stretches inland from the ocean to the small village of Skjolden in the muni ...

in the municipality of

Sogndal Sogndal is a List of municipalities of Norway, municipality in Vestland Counties of Norway, county, Norway. It is located on the northern shore of the Sognefjorden in the Districts of Norway, traditional district of Sogn. The village of Hermansv ...

Vestland Vestland is a Counties of Norway, county in Norway. The county is located in Western Norway, and its administrative centre is Bergen, where the executive and political leadership is based. The County governor (Norway), County Governor is based in ...

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 sits along the

Norwegian National Road 5 Norwegian National Road 5 (, ) is a national road in Norway. It runs between Florø, Kinn to Lærdal, Vestland. Starting where the E16 enters the Lærdal Tunnel, approximately five kilometers south of Lærdalsøyri, the road goes northwest ...

, about southeast of the municipal centre of Sogndalsfjøra and about northeast of the

Sogndal Airport, Haukåsen Sogndal Airport (; ) is a regional airport serving Sogndal Municipality and the surrounding area in Vestland, Norway. It is situated at Haukåsen, from Kaupanger and from Sogndalsfjøra. It serves the whole Sogn district. The airport consists of ...

. Kaupanger IL is a sports club located in Kaupanger. The village has a population (2019) of 1,012 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 .

History

Kaupanger originated as a settlement during the

Viking Age The Viking Age (about ) was the period during the Middle Ages when Norsemen known as Vikings undertook large-scale raiding, colonising, conquest, and trading throughout Europe and reached North America. The Viking Age applies not only to their ...

. Earlier, Kaupanger was known as Tingstad. '' Kaupang'' is an

Old Norse Old Norse, also referred to as Old Nordic or Old Scandinavian, was a stage of development of North Germanic languages, North Germanic dialects before their final divergence into separate Nordic languages. Old Norse was spoken by inhabitants ...

term for a trading or market place so the village's name is composed of ''kaup-'' (buy) and ''angr'' (fjord, harbor), hence "buy harbor", similar to the literal translation of

Copenhagen Copenhagen ( ) is the capital and most populous city of Denmark, with a population of 1.4 million in the Urban area of Copenhagen, urban area. The city is situated on the islands of Zealand and Amager, separated from Malmö, Sweden, by the ...

. The Kaupanger Stave Church is believed to have been built in the 12th century and it is still in existence in this village.

References

{{authority control Villages in Vestland Sogndal