Nærøy

Nærøy (ˈnæ̂ːrœʏ) is a former municipality in Trøndelag county, Norway. The municipality existed from 1838 until its dissolution in 2020 when it joined Nærøysund Municipality. It was part of the Namdalen region. Norway's smallest town, Kolvereid, was the administrative centre of the municipality. Some villages in Nærøy included Abelvær, Foldereid, Gravvik, Lund, Ottersøy, Salsbruket, Steine, and Torstad. At the time of its dissolution in 2020, the municipality was the 96th largest by area out of the 422 municipalities in Norway. Nærøy was the 200th most populous municipality in Norway with a population of 5,117. The municipality's population density was and its population had increased by 2% over the previous decade. Nærøy was established as a municipality on 1 January 1838 (see formannskapsdistrikt). On 1 July 1869, the western island district was separated from Nærøy to become the new municipality of Vikten. This left Nærøy with 1,477 residents. On 1 January 1902, an unpopulated area of Kolvereid was transferred to Nærøy municipality. During the 1960s, there were many municipal mergers across Norway due to the work of the Schei Committee. On 1 January 1964, the neighboring municipalities of Kolvereid (population: 2,426), Nærøy (population: 2,182), Gravvik (population: 816), and the western two-thirds of Foldereid were merged to form the new, larger municipality of Nærøy. On 1 January 2018, the municipality of Nærøy switched from the old Nord-Trøndelag county to the new Trøndelag county. On 1 January 2020, the municipality of Nærøy was merged with most of the neighboring municipality of Vikna to form the new Nærøysund Municipality. The Lund area in Nærøy was not part of the merger. It became part of the newly enlarged Namsos Municipality on the same date. The municipality (originally the parish) is named after the island of Nærøya (Njarðøy) since the Old Nærøy Church was built there. The first element is maybe the stem form of the name of the Norse god Njord (but it is suspicious that it is not in the genitive case).