Sotra or Store Sotra is the name of a large
island
An island or isle is a piece of land, distinct from a continent, completely surrounded by water. There are continental islands, which were formed by being split from a continent by plate tectonics, and oceanic islands, which have never been ...
in
Øygarden Municipality in
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 ...
, located just west of the city of
Bergen
Bergen (, ) is a city and municipalities of Norway, municipality in Vestland county on the Western Norway, west coast of Norway. Bergen is the list of towns and cities in Norway, second-largest city in Norway after the capital Oslo.
By May 20 ...
. It is part of a pair of islands called '
Sotra' and '
Litlesotra' ('small Sotra') that are part of a large archipelago stretching from
Fedje southwards along the coast of Norway. The larger of the two islands is
Store Sotra (also called Sotra), while
Litlesotra is smaller and less populated of the two.
Roughly 28,700 (2017) people live on the two islands of Sotra, with the larger island having a population of about 19,100 (2017) and 9,589 (2017) living on the smaller island.
Geography
The main population centres on Sotra include (from north to south) Vindenes,
Ã…gotnes,
Knappskog, Møvik,
Tælavåg,
Hammarsland,
Skogsvåg, and
Klokkarvik. Part of the island was in the former municipality of
Fjell, and the large disused
Fjell Fortress, built by German forces in World War II, is on the island.
The island of Sotra is part of an
archipelago
An archipelago ( ), sometimes called an island group or island chain, is a chain, cluster, or collection of islands. An archipelago may be in an ocean, a sea, or a smaller body of water. Example archipelagos include the Aegean Islands (the o ...
, so it is surrounded by islands and waterways. To the east of Sotra lies the island of
Litlesotra. The small islands of
Bildøy and
Geitung lie near Litlesotra. The
Raunefjorden (to the east) separates Sotra from the mainland
Bergen Peninsula. The small islands of
Tyssøyna,
Lerøyna, and
Bjelkarøyna lie in the Raunefjorden off the southeastern coast of Sotra. To the south of Sotra lies the island of
Toftøya and the
Korsfjorden. To the west of Sotra lie a number of small islands including
Algrøyna and
Lokøyna. Finally, to the north of Sotra lie the small islands of
Misje,
Turøyna, and
Toftøyna
Toftøyna or Toftøy is an island in Øygarden municipality in Vestland county, Norway. The island is the southernmost of the main islands of Øygarden. It is connected by bridge to the island of Rongøy (to the north), to the small island of ...
. Sotra is connected to the mainland by a series of road bridges across Bildøy and Litlesotra before crossing the
Sotra Bridge, the seventh-longest suspension bridge in Norway.
The tall Liatårnet is the highest mountain on Sotra. Other mountains on the island include the tall
Førdesveten, the tall
Gardafjellet, the tall
Knappskogfjellet, and the tall
Spjeldsfjellet.
Media gallery
File:BildoeySotra.jpg, Boathouses at Bildøy.
File:Sotra.jpg, Fishing vessel anchored in a bay.
File:PanoramaSotraNese.jpg, View from Liatårnet.
File:Sotrabrua_2.jpg, Sotra Bridge.
References
Islands of Vestland
Archipelagoes of Norway
Øygarden
Landforms of Vestland
{{Vestland-island-stub