Jan S. Krogh's Geosite: Domestic enclaves/exclaves of Norway
Norway has three dry domestic municipal
enclaves/exclaves, one of them – the Himberg exclave
– is located about 130 km southwest of Oslo, while two more – the Jøsås
twin-exclaves – are situated east of Norway's third biggest city in the middle
of the country.
Jøsås
Two enclaves are located near Hell,
not very far from the
city of Trondheim, being exclaves of Sør-Trøndelag county inside Nord-Trøndelag
county.
If you have Google Earth installed on your computer, press here
to get there.
Three farmsteads, Øvre Jøsås,
Store Jøsås and Lille Jøsås belonging to Malvik municipality of Sør-
Trøndelag county are exclaved inside Stjørdal municipality of
Nord-Trøndelag county in two different exclaves. Øvre Jøsås and
Store Jøsås are located in one exclave (the eastern one) while Lille
Jøsås is making another exclave (the western one). The enclaves have
only road access to Malvik.
Between the two Malvik exclaves
there is located a building, most likely a hut, more or less exactly on the border to
Stjørdal municipality. This land between the exclaves has got property
number 344/2.
Himberg
The last exclave is Himberg farms, being an
exclave of Sandefjord municipality completely surrounded by Larvik municipality.
Both municipalities belong to the county of Vestfold. As of 2006 39 persons
lived in the 345,8 acres (1,4 km²) big exclave divided on 12 livinghouses and
farmsteads. The historical background explaining how the exclave appeared is
today forgotten. Until the beginning of the 1990s a 5 acres big counter-exclave
existed. According to the locals, also the inhabitants living in the Larvik
corridor east of the exclave, they feel they belong more to Sandefjord where
they go for shopping. The two municipalities co-operates the area. Larvik clears
away a couple hundred of meters with snow inside the exclave while Sandefjord
does the same in another border area belonging to her neighbor. But both the
local Larvik and Sandefjord children attend a Sandefjord-run secondary school.
According to the Sandefjord mayor the people must decide to which municipality
they want to belong. But there is no plan to redraw the borders of these two
municipalities.
This is how Himberg
exclave looks seen from the municipality of Sandefjord.
And with a closer
look. On the closest the Himberg exclave is about 442 metres from
Sandefjord proper.
The exclave
actually consist from about ten farmsteads. Do notice the strange
"tail" at the Haugen farm!
The eastern part of
the exclave has a rather unusual boundaryline, since a part of the main
road (about 50 metres) in front of the houses is belonging to Larvik,
while the houses are in Sandefjord.
Himberg farms
located inside Larvik municipality.
At Haugen,
belonging to Sandefjord proper, the access road from one house is making a
pene-enclave inside Larvik municipality, going from the main site to the
main road. The road, belonging to Sandefjord, is surrounded by Larvik on
all sides, except on its northern appr. 5 meters' width.
The about 300
metres long pene-enclave at Haugen is a part of Sandefjord surrounded by
Larvik on three sides, but at the Sandefjord house site the road is
connected.
