Sandnes (ˈsɑ̂nːeːs) is a city and municipality in Rogaland, Norway. It lies immediately south of Stavanger, the 4th largest city in Norway, and together the Stavanger/Sandnes area is the third-largest urban area in Norway. The urban city of Sandnes lies in the extreme western part of the vast municipality and it makes up about 5% of the total land area of the municipality.
Sandnes is part of the traditional district of Jæren. The western part of the municipality is very urbanized while the eastern part of the municipality is very rural. The municipality is divided into 13 boroughs and the administrative centre is located in the borough of Trones og Sentrum, a borough in the city. There are several villages in the rural parts of the municipality including Hommersåk, Høle, Foss-Eikeland, Stokka, Forsand, Lysebotn, and Vatne.
The municipality is the 109th largest by area out of the 356 municipalities in Norway. Sandnes is the 7th most populous municipality in Norway with a population of 80,704 in Q1 2021. The municipality's population density is and its population has increased by 20.8% over the previous 10-year period.
The small port village of Sandnes was granted ladested (small seaport city) status in 1860. On 6 April 1861, the small city was separated from the municipality of Høyland to form a separate self-governing municipality of its own. Initially, the municipality had 440 residents. On 1 July 1957, a small part of Høyland municipality (population: 18) was transferred to the city of Sandnes.
During the 1960s, there were many municipal mergers across Norway due to the work of the Schei Committee. On 1 January 1965, the city and municipality of Sandnes (population: 3,961) was merged with the municipality of Høyland (population: 20,353) and parts of the municipalities of Høle (population: 926) and Hetland (population: 2,077).
In 2014, the Storting decided that the number of municipalities in Norway would be lowered.