Ålesund municipality is a municipality in Møre og Romsdal county.
On 1 January 2020, the former municipalities of Ålesund, Skodje,
Ørskog, Haram and Sandøy became Ålesund municipality. An exception
was the island Orten in the former Sandøy municipality, which was
transferred to Aukra.
Prior to the merger in 2020, Ålesund
municipality included Ålesund (city) and large parts of the former
Borgund municipality on several islands within. The most populous
part of the municipality is located at the far end of the fjord
systems on Sunnmøre and is a service and communication hub for the
region. The municipality also includes the North Islands outside
Romsdalsfjorden. The municipality has a large and export-oriented
business community.
Ålesund municipality now has about 66,290
inhabitants.
Establishment of a new Ålesund municipality
On 1 January 2020,
the then Ålesund, Skodje, Ørskog, Haram and Sandøy municipalities
became Ålesund municipality. An exception was the island Orten in
Sandøy municipality, which was transferred to Aukra.
The
municipality is governed by a popularly elected municipal council
and chairmanship. The municipal council is Norway's largest with 77
members. The municipal council has overall responsibility for the
municipality's activities and will mainly concentrate on important
and strategic tasks. The presidency has 15 members and makes
decisions or advises on decisions to the municipal council.
The municipality is the largest public transport hub
in the county, and figures from 2016 show that around two million
passengers get on or off a bus or boat in Ålesund every year.
Ålesund is connected to Europavei 136, which runs from Dombås in
Oppland, and connects Sunnmøre with the E6 and Eastern Norway.
Europavei 39 between Bergen and Trondheim also runs through the
city's inner city districts. Ålesund town is connected to Giske
municipality with underwater tunnels, which also connect the
district Ellingsøya with the rest of the town. There is talk of
introducing a toll ring to improve the city's congested road
network.
Ålesund Airport is located at Vigra in Giske
municipality outside Ålesund. The airport has daily routes to Oslo,
Bergen, Trondheim, Stavanger, Copenhagen and Amsterdam. In addition,
there are routes with several weekly departures to Alicante, Gdańsk,
Gran Canaria and Nice. There is also significant charter traffic
from the airport.
Nordøyvegen is a road connection under
construction that will provide a mainland connection to the North
Islands in Ålesund municipality (formerly Haram municipality) at the
far end of Møre og Romsdal. The road connection has a total length
of 37 km and will provide a permanent road connection to 2,709
inhabitants (as of 1 January 2015) on Lepsøya, Haramsøya, Skuløy /
Flemsøya, Fjørtofta and Harøya / Finnøya.
Boat, bus and train
Hurtigruten has daily calls at Ålesund from the north side of the
city center. In the summer, the Hurtigruten round trip to Geiranger
from Ålesund and in the autumn a round trip into the Hjørundfjord.
Tide serves several high-speed boat connections from the center of
Ålesund, with boat routes to Hareid, Langevåg, Valderøy, and the
North Islands, among others.
Ålesund has a car ferry connection
on county road 60 between Magerholm and Ørsneset in Sykkylven. This
is one of the county's and the country's busiest ferry routes.
Train buses run from Ålesund to and from most train departures in
Åndalsnes to travel further with the Rauma line towards Dombås, Oslo
and Trondheim.
Education
The primary school in Ålesund
consists of 24 primary schools and 7 secondary schools, as well as
some private / independent schools.
Ålesund has five public
upper secondary schools as well as a private one with a fairly
complete range of fields of study: Ålesund upper secondary school
(Also called «Latin school»), Fagerlia upper secondary school, Nørve
upper secondary school, Borgund upper secondary school, Spjelkavik
upper secondary school and Akademiet Ålesund
Higher education
is offered at NTNU in Ålesund, Kunstfagskolen and Fagskolen in
Ålesund.