Aurland
Aurland is a municipality in the county of Sogn og Fjordane, Norway. It is located in the traditional district of Sogn. The administrative center is the village of Aurlandsvangen. Other larger villages include Flåm, Undredal, and Gudvangen. The town has a population of 1800 people in all.
Aurland was established as a municipality on 1 January 1838 (see formannskapsdistrikt). The original municipality was identical to the Aurland parish (prestegjeld) with the sub-parishes (sokn) of Aurlandsvangen, Flåm, and Undredal. In 1859, the sub-parish of Nærøy was created by separating it from the sub-parish of Undredal.
The earliest inhabitants lived by hunting and fishing until they gradually started farming about 2,000 years ago. Agriculture is still important with the rich valley floors and abundant mountain pastures. As in all of western Norway, the area was overpopulated in the middle 1800s, and cotters were forced to clear land far up the mountainsides. This difficulty led to emigration and in the 20 year period after 1845, 1,050 people moved out of the community most of them moving to America.
Tourism came to the community as early as the middle of the 19th century, in the form of sport fishing and hunting. Tourists from England were dominant during this time and one can still find English names for mountaintops, hunting cabins, and fishing holes.
Later, a different type of tourist came to the region. These tourists came to enjoy the natural beauty of the area. These tourists created a need for jobs in the form of transportation and lodging. Three or four ships would anchor in the Nærøyfjord at a time which created the need for scores of horse drawn carriages to take the tourists up to Stalheim hotel.
(Flåm) (The Aurland Road) (Laerdal)
