Lyngdal is a municipality and town in Agder county and is the country's second southernmost municipality. Lyngdal borders Farsund and Kvinesdal in the west, Hægebostad, Åseral and Evje and Hornnes in the north and Lindesnes in the east. On 1 January 2020, the old Lyngdal municipality was merged with its northeastern neighboring municipality Audnedal.
The western part of Agder belongs to the
Svekonorvegian bedrock shield, and consists of two main geological
formations of Proterozoic rocks formed during the Gothic and later
Svekonorvegian mountain range ancestors, with a strong metamorphosis
under the latter. A substrate of 1450–1600 million years old slate,
quartzite, marble and amphibolite with some hornblende gneiss, and
on top of this acidic surface structures of both granite and
granodiorite (respectively 1000–1250 million years old, and in
places 1480–1550 million years old). The youngest Sveconorvegian
formations are witnessed by larger formations of granite. The
Caledonian mountain range fold did not reach down here. The faults
go both in the southwest-northeast direction and in the south-north
direction.
Lyngdal literally stretches from sea to hello. The
southernmost point in the municipality is Bispen at the far end of
the skerries, not far from Lindesnes lighthouse, while the
northernmost point is just north of the hamlet Sveindal at the
border to Åseral municipality. As the crow flies, this is a distance
of about 65 kilometers. In the east – west direction, the
municipality extends over 20 miles, from Stangelifjellet by the Open
Fjord in the west to Storevatn by Homeland in the east.
The
municipality has three settlements: Lyngdal with 5,159, Skomrak with
253, Svenevik with 316 with inhabitants as of 1 January 2020.
After the merging of the three municipalities Lyngdal, Kvås and
Austad, as well as Spangereid west of the Lenefjord in 1963, the
municipality got an area of 391 km². The three original
municipalities had the following distributions: Lyngdal municipality
had an area of approx. 230 km², Austad ca. 45 km² and Kvås approx.
105 km. In 2020, the municipality merged with Audnedal (251 km²),
and the municipality's current area is now 642.8 - or 878 km² if one
includes the municipality's sea areas. The municipality has a
shoreline of approximately 75 km.
One of the more special
geographical conditions at Lyngdal is the three large fjords in the
municipality. Lyngdalsfjorden (often incorrectly called
Kvavikfjorden) is divided into several arms, and has a total length
of 32 kilometers. Grønsfjorden, which in the narrow Jåsund is
connected to Lenefjorden, is at its deepest 179 meters. It is a
common misconception that the Lenefjord is called the Grønsfjord,
but this is probably due to the algae that occasionally color the
Lenefjord completely green in summer. Both fjords are 12 km long.
Rosfjorden, which due to its high salt content rarely freezes, is 11
km long and thus the shortest of the three fjords. At its deepest,
near Bærøy, it is 188 meters deep. This is very favorable in terms
of ship calls and is probably one of the reasons why the harbor in
Holmsundet has become one of Agder's largest harbors.
Lyngdal
is not a municipality that can point to the high mountain peaks. The
municipality's highest point is Ørnemyrfjellet with its 578.1 meters. In the old Lyngdal municipality, Kalåsknipen was the
highest point, with 504.4 meters above sea level. Other high points
are: Skyldalsheia (488 masl) Homsknipen (475 masl) and Fagerhei,
just north of old Kvås municipality (465 masl).
Skreli is
Lyngdal's most famous hiking area. This is where the high mountains
meet the sea. It is pure barren rock, bare and plain. It's easy to
walk there. There is a parking space, and there is a marked hiking
trail inwards.
It is estimated that people settled along the
Sørland coast quite quickly after the ice retreated after the last
ice age. It is uncertain when the first people came to Lyngdal, but
finds from the Stone Age show that people lived between the rivers
Lygna and Litleåne then. The area, called Å, soon became a hub for
transport, and had become a center of power in the 500s and 600s.
Behind Lyngdal church are still seven large burial mounds that are
believed to date from the Early Iron Age and Viking Age.
A
stone church was also built in this area in the Middle Ages, but
this was demolished when a new church was to be built in 1847. It
was also at that time that growth in Lyngdal accelerated. Until the
beginning of the 18th century, the municipality had only been an
agricultural area with a few large and several smaller farms. From
one census in 1801 to the next in 1835, the population had grown
from 3364 to 4249, and a preliminary peak was reached in 1865 with
5046 inhabitants. After this, emigration to America slowed
population growth sharply, and there was a negative population
development. In 1930 the population was down to 3684.
The
older municipal archive sources for the municipality can be found
today at the Intermunicipal Archive in Vest-Agder IKS (IKAVA). This
includes protocols from, for example, the municipal council,
chairmanship, poor board, school board and archives with, among
other things, personal information in the form of client archives,
tax protocols, but also school protocols.