Gulen

is a municipality in the southwestern part of Vestland county, Norway. It is part of the traditional district of Sogn. The administrative center of the municipality is the village of Eivindvik. Other villages in Gulen include Brekke, Byrknes, Dalsøyra, Dingja, Instefjord, Mjømna, Rutledal, and Ytre Oppedal. The municipality of Gulen sits to the south of the Sognefjorden and it surrounds the Gulafjorden, which is considered to be the place where Norway's west-coastal Vikings met for the Gulating, a governing body. The area along the Gulafjorden called Flolid (just east of the village of Eivindvik) is now a national historic place, where an open-air theater and annual summer play commemorates the Vikings who gathered there 1000 years ago to accept Christianity. The municipality is the 190th largest by area out of the 356 municipalities in Norway. Gulen is the 265th most populous municipality in Norway with a population of 2,230. The municipality's population density is and its population has decreased by 3.5% over the previous 10-year period. In 2016, the chief of police for Vestlandet formally suggested a reconfiguration of police districts and stations. He proposed that the police station in Gulen be closed. Evindvig was established as a municipality on 1 January 1838 (see formannskapsdistrikt law). The municipality of 1838 was created to be identical to the Evindvig parish (prestegjeld) that included the three sub-parishes (sokn) of Evindvig, Brekke, and Husøy. The sub-parish of Brekke (population: 898) was separated from the municipality in 1850 to form a municipality of its own, leaving a total of 3,944 residents in Evindvig. (Later, Brekke was merged with Lavik as the municipality of Lavik og Brekke. This was short-lived and Brekke later became a separate municipality once again.) In 1858, the sub-parish of Husøy (population: 1,384) was separated from Evindvig to form its own municipality called Utvær (renamed Solund in 1923). This left Evindvig with 3,018 inhabitants. On 1 July 1890, the name of Evindvig municipality was officially changed to Gulen.