Lykling (historically: ''Løkling'') is a village in

Bømlo Bømlo is a municipality in the southwestern part of Vestland county, Norway. It is located in the traditional district of Sunnhordland. The administrative centre of the municipality is the village of Svortland. Other villages in Bømlo inclu ...

municipality in

Vestland Vestland is a county in Norway established on 1 January 2020. The county is located in Western Norway and it is centred around the city of Bergen, Norway's second largest city. The administrative centre of the county is the city of Bergen, whe ...

county,

Norway Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe, the mainland territory of which comprises the western and northernmost portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and t ...

. The village is located on the southwestern part of the island of

. The village is about north of the village of

Langevåg Langevåg or Langevågen is the administrative center of Sula Municipality in Møre og Romsdal county, Norway. The village is situated at the end of the road on the north side of the island of Sula, about northwest of the village of Mauseidv ...

and it sits at the end of the ''Lyklingfjorden'', a small bay off the

North Sea The North Sea lies between Great Britain, Norway, Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium. An epeiric sea on the European continental shelf, it connects to the Atlantic Ocean through the English Channel in the south and the Norwegian S ...

to the west. Lykling has become a popular

tourist attraction A tourist attraction is a place of interest that tourists visit, typically for its inherent or an exhibited natural or cultural value, historical significance, natural or built beauty, offering leisure and amusement. Types Places of natural ...

, mainly due to its history of extensive

gold mining Gold mining is the extraction of gold resources by mining. Historically, mining gold from alluvial deposits used manual separation processes, such as gold panning. However, with the expansion of gold mining to ores that are not on the surfac ...

in ''Lyklingeberga'', the mountainous area surrounding the village. The discovery of

gold Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au (from la, aurum) and atomic number 79. This makes it one of the higher atomic number elements that occur naturally. It is a bright, slightly orange-yellow, dense, soft, malleable, and ductile ...

in 1862 by a young

shepherd A shepherd or sheepherder is a person who tends, herds, feeds, or guards flocks of sheep. ''Shepherd'' derives from Old English ''sceaphierde (''sceap'' 'sheep' + ''hierde'' ' herder'). ''Shepherding is one of the world's oldest occupations ...

, led to several constructions being built in the area. These were built by three major companies, mainly financed and run by English businessmen. In addition to the mining constructions, two hotels, one

hotel ship A hotelship is a passenger ship which is used for a short period as a hotel. A botel or boatel is a boat that serves as a hotel or hostel. Currently there are few permanent hotel ships. The word is a portmanteau of boat and hotel. Botels may r ...

, several bakeries, Lykling Church, and a number of retail stores were built in the village. At its peak, about 500 men were working in these mines. Mining activity started in 1882 and ended in 1910, lasting more than 25 years and removing over of pure gold during that time.

References

Villages in Vestland Bømlo {{Vestland-geo-stub