or (also: ; ) is a
fjord in
Troms
Troms (; ; ; ) is a Counties of Norway, county in northern Norway. It borders Finnmark county to the northeast and Nordland county in the southwest. Norrbotten Län in Sweden is located to the south and further southeast is a shorter border with ...
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 ...
. The long fjord runs through the municipalities of
Balsfjord,
Målselv,
Senja, and
Tromsø
Tromsø is a List of towns and cities in Norway, city in Tromsø Municipality in Troms county, Norway. The city is the administrative centre of the municipality as well as the administrative centre of Troms county. The city is located on the is ...
. The fjord runs southeast between the islands of
Senja and
Kvaløya and further into the mainland along the border between Balsfjord and Senja municipalities.
The fjord stretches from
Hekkingen Lighthouse off the coast of the island of Senja to the village of
Nordfjordbotn. In the inner part of the fjord, it branches out into four smaller fjords: Nordfjorden, Aursfjorden, Målselvfjorden, and Rossfjorden. The
Målselva river feeds into the Målselvfjorden. There are several larger villages along the coast of the fjord, including
Mortenhals,
Mestervik, and
Rossfjordstraumen.
Etymology
The name Malangen comes from the old name of the fjord (). The first element is which comes from the
Old High German
Old High German (OHG; ) is the earliest stage of the German language, conventionally identified as the period from around 500/750 to 1050. Rather than representing a single supra-regional form of German, Old High German encompasses the numerous ...
word which means "bag" or "leather bag" which may refer to the baggy shape of the fjord. The same word ''mál'' is probably also the origin of the name of the
Målselva, the big river that enters the fjord from the
Målselvdalen and
Bardudalen valleys (the neighboring
Målselv Municipality has a similar etymology). The last element of the name is which means "
inlet
An inlet is a typically long and narrow indentation of a shoreline such as a small arm, cove, bay, sound, fjord, lagoon or marsh, that leads to an enclosed larger body of water such as a lake, estuary, gulf or marginal sea.
Overview
In ...
" or "narrow
fjord".
History
Historically, the fjord along with the area around it has had a historical importance as the northern boundary for Norwegian settlement during the
Middle Ages
In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the 5th to the late 15th centuries, similarly to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire and ...
. In the 13th century, King
Haakon IV of Norway gave some people from
Bjarmaland
Bjarmaland (also spelled ''Bjarmland'' and ''Bjarmia'') was a territory mentioned in sagas from the Viking Age and in geographical accounts until the 16th century. The term is usually understood to have referred to the southern shores of the Whit ...
some land around the Malangen fjord on which to live. From 1871 until 1964, the area surrounding much of the fjord was part of
Malangen Municipality, a municipality that was named after the fjord.
See also
*
List of Norwegian fjords
References
{{authority control
Fjords of Troms
Balsfjord
Senja
Målselv
Tromsø