Sperillen is a
lake
A lake is an area filled with water, localized in a basin, surrounded by land, and distinct from any river or other outlet that serves to feed or drain the lake. Lakes lie on land and are not part of the ocean, although, like the much lar ...
in the valley of
Ă…dal
Ă…dal is a valley in the municipality of Ringerike and was a former municipality in Buskerud County, Norway.
The municipality was created in 1857 by a split from Norderhov. At that time Ă…dal had a population of 2,382. On 1 January 1964 Ă…dal wa ...
in
Ringerike municipality,
Viken 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 ...
.
[Sperillen]
Store Norske Leksikon, retrieved 28 March 2013
The lake has an area of 37 km² and extending about 26 km in length. It is 108 meters deep at its deepest and lies at 150 meters above sea level. Two rivers from
Oppland
Oppland is a former county in Norway which existed from 1781 until its dissolution on 1 January 2020. The old Oppland county bordered the counties of Trøndelag, Møre og Romsdal, Sogn og Fjordane, Buskerud, Akershus, Oslo and Hedmark. Th ...
,
Begna from the valley of
Begnadalen and Urula from the valley of Hedalen, flow into the lake at the northern end on either side of the town of
Nes in Ă…dal. At the southern end, Ă…dal river flows downstream from Sperillen. The outflow powers a
hydro-electric power station at Ringmoen.
European route E16
European route E16 is the designation of a main west-east road through Northern Ireland, Scotland, Norway and Sweden, from Derry to Gävle, via Belfast, Glasgow, Edinburgh, previously by ferry to Bergen, Voss, through the Gudvanga Tunnel and ...
follows the east side of the lake.
[
The name Sperillen is derived from the ]Old Norse
Old Norse, Old Nordic, or Old Scandinavian, is 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 of Scandinavia and t ...
''SperĂ°ill'' which means "tail" and may refer to the elongated form of the lake.[ The lake is well known for its fisheries and is one of only a few in Norway with a commercial fishery. Common species are whitefish, char, ]European perch
The European perch (''Perca fluviatilis''), also known as the common perch, redfin perch, big-scaled redfin, English perch, Euro perch, Eurasian perch, Eurasian river perch, Hatch, poor man’s rockfish or in Anglophone parts of Europe, simply th ...
and trout
Trout are species of freshwater fish belonging to the genera '' Oncorhynchus'', '' Salmo'' and '' Salvelinus'', all of the subfamily Salmoninae of the family Salmonidae. The word ''trout'' is also used as part of the name of some non-sa ...
, as well as crayfish.
From 1868 to 1929, transport along the lake was principally supplied by a small steamship, ''DS Bægna'', which ran from the terminus of the Sperillen Line at Finsand on the southern end of the lake to Nes at the northern end. ''DS Bægna'' went in service in 1868 and continued in traffic until 1929, when it was replaced with a motor ship, ''DS Spirillen''.''DS Spirillen og DS Bægna'' (Hen Gjestgiveri)
/ref>
Gallery
References
Lakes of Viken (county)
{{Viken-geo-stub