20 Interesting Facts About Stavanger

Facts About Stavanger

Facts About Stavanger

  1. Stavanger was officially established as a city in 1125.
  2. Stavanger has the largest collection of wooden houses in northern Europe, There’s an estimated 8,000 of the timber buildings lining the city’s streets.
  3. The first traces of settlement in the Stavanger region come from the days when the ice retreated after the last ice age c. 10,000 years ago.
  4. On 1 January 2020, the municipalities of Finnøy, Rennesøy, and Stavanger are scheduled to merge into one, large municipality called Stavanger.
  5. The largest local football club in Stavanger is Viking FK, one of the most successful football clubs in Norwegian history, having won a total of 8 league titles and 5 Norwegian Football Cup titles.
  6. The Old Norse form of the name was Stafangr. The origin of the name has been discussed for decades, and the most used interpretation is that it originally was the name of the inlet now called Vågen, which was the original site of the city, on the east shore of the bay.
  7. Stavanger has several sister cities: Aberdeen, United Kingdom; Antsirabe, Madagascar; Baku, Azerbaijan; Estelí, Nicaragua; Galveston, United States; Harlow, United Kingdom; Macaé, Brazil; Massawa, Eritrea; Melbourne, Australia; Nablus, Palestine; Houston, United States; Esbjerg, Denmark; Eskilstuna, Sweden; Jyväskylä, Finland; Neskaupstaður, Iceland; Nablus, Palestine & Netanya, Israel.
  8. Domestic and international military installations are located in Stavanger, including the NATO Joint Warfare Centre.
  9. Gladmat food festival is also held each year and is considered to be one of Scandinavia’s leading food festivals.
  10. Stavanger and its region, along with Liverpool, United Kingdom, was selected as a European Capital of Culture for 2008.
  11. Every two years, Stavanger organizes the Offshore Northern Seas (ONS), which is the second largest exhibition and conference for the energy sector.
  12. The Population of Stavanger is 132,102 as of 2019.
  13. Stavanger was the host of the 2009 beach volleyball SWATCH FIVB World Championships.
  14. Stavanger city and the surranding region is well known as the Oil Capital of Norway.
  15. Norway’s largest bank robbery occurred in Stavanger, thieves escaped with 57.4 million kroner, around $10 million USD.
  16. Norwegian energy company Equinor, the largest company in the Nordic region, is headquartered in Stavanger.
  17. In 872 , the area around Stavanger, Was the first time all of Norway gathered under one crown, in the Battle of Hafrsfjord. 
  18. Stavanger participates in the annual Nuart festival, organised for national and international artists who operate outside of the traditional art establishment.
  19. Stavanger is one of Norway’s oldest cities. It emerged in the 12th century during a period of population growth and increasing urbanization throughout northern Europe.
  20. Stavanger’s tallest building is the Rica Forum Hotel, standing at 262 ft. 
Facts About Stavanger
Facts About Stavanger

Brief History of Stavanger

The first traces of settlement in the Stavanger region come from the days when the ice retreated after the last ice age c. 10,000 years ago. A number of historians have argued convincingly that North-Jæren was an economic and military centre as far back as the 9th and 10th centuries with the consolidation of the nation at the Battle of Hafrsfjord around 872. Stavanger grew into a center of church administration and an important south-west coast market town around 1100–1300.

With the Protestant Reformation in 1536, Stavanger’s role as a religious center declined, and the establishment of Kristiansand in the early 17th century led to the relocation of the bishopric. However, rich herring fisheries in the 19th century gave the city new life.

The city’s history is a continuous alternation between economic booms and recessions. For long periods of time its most important industries have been shipping, shipbuilding, the fish canning industry and associated subcontractors.  Facts About Stavanger.

In 1969, a new boom started as oil was first discovered in the North Sea. After much discussion, Stavanger was chosen to be the on-shore center for the oil industry on the Norwegian sector of the North Sea, and a period of hectic growth followed.

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