Tysfjord

Tysfjord (Divtasvuodna) is a former municipality in Nordland county, Norway. The municipality existed from 1869 until its dissolution in 2020. The municipality was part of the traditional district of Ofoten. The administrative centre of the municipality was the village of Kjøpsvik. Other villages included Drag, Hundholmen, Korsnes, Musken, Rørvika, Skarberget, and Storå. Tysfjord had a very large population of Lule Sami people. The Árran Lule Sami Center was located in the village of Drag. With the Norwegian language and Lule Sami language both as official languages of the municipality, Tysfjord was the only municipality in Norway where speakers of Lule Sami should theoretically be able to speak that language with officials, although this has not come completely to fruition. At the time of its dissolution, the municipality was the 56th largest by area out of the 422 municipalities in Norway. Tysfjord was the 330th most populous municipality in Norway with a population of 1,953. The municipality's population density was and its population has decreased by 3.7% over the previous decade. The municipality of Tysfjord was established on 1 January 1869 when it was separated from the large Lødingen Municipality. Initially, the population of Tysfjord was 1,402. During the 1960s, there were many municipal mergers across Norway due to the work of the Schei Committee. On 1 January 1964, the Tysnes and Molvika areas (population: 33) located northwest of Bognes was transferred from the neighboring Hamarøy Municipality to Tysfjord Municipality. On 1 January 2020, the municipality was dissolved and divided between the neighboring municipalities of Narvik and Hamarøy. This occurred because in 2017, the Parliament of Norway decided that Tysfjord would be divided along the fjord with the eastern half being merged with the neighboring municipalities of Narvik and Ballangen to form a new, larger municipality of Narvik and the remaining western half will be merged with the municipality of Hamarøy on the same date.