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Map of the three districts in the county. Green is Sunnmøre, purple is Romsdal, and blue is Nordmøre.
The nameMøre og Romsdal was created in 1936. The first element refers to the districts ofNordmøre andSunnmøre, and the last element refers toRomsdal. Until 1919, the county was called "Romsdalensamt", and from 1919 to 1935 "Mørefylke".
For hundreds of years (1660-1919), the region was calledRomsdalenamt, after theRomsdalen valley in the present-dayRauma Municipality. TheOld Norse form of the name wasRaumsdalr. The first element is the genitive case of the nameRaumr derived from the name of the riverRauma, i.e. "The Dale of Rauma".Raumr may refer to stream or current,[4] or to booming or thundering waterfalls like Sletta waterfall.[5] A purely legendary approach to the name refers toRaum the Old, one of the sons ofNór, the eponymousSaga King of Norway.[citation needed][disputed –discuss] Since the majority of the residents of the county lived in the Sunnmøre region, there was some controversy over the name. In 1919, many of the old county names were changed and this county was renamedMørefylke.
The nameMøre was chosen to represent the region where the majority of the county residents lived. That name isdative ofOld Norse:Mǿrr (á Mǿri) and it is probably derived from the wordmarr referring to something wet likebog (common along the outer coast) or the sea itself. The name is interpreted as "coastland" or "bogland". Møre was originally the name of the coastal area from Stad and north including most ofFosen.[6] (There is also a coastal district inSweden that has the same name:Möre.) The change in name from Romsdalen to Møre was controversial and it did not sit well with the residents of the Romsdal region. Finally in 1936, the name was changed again to a compromise name: Møre og Romsdal (English:Møre and Romsdal).
The ambiguous designationmøring— "person from Møre"— is used strictly about people from Nordmøre (and less frequently for people from Sunnmøre), excluding the people from Romsdal (while, consequently,romsdaling— "person from Romsdal"— is used about the latter).
Thecoat of arms was granted on 15 March 1978. It shows three gold-coloredViking ships on a blue background. Shipping and shipbuilding were historically very important to the region, so boats were chosen as the symbol of the arms. The masts on the Viking ships form crosses, which symbolize the strong Christian and religious beliefs as well as the strong religious organisations in the county. There are three boats to represent the three districts of the county:Sunnmøre,Romsdal andNordmøre.[7]
Traditionally, the county has been divided into three districts. From north to south, these areNordmøre,Romsdal, andSunnmøre. Although the districts do not have separate governments and despite modern road, sea, and air connections throughout the county, the three districts still have their own identities in many ways. Historically speaking, connections have been stronger between Nordmøre and Sør-Trøndelag to the north, Romsdal and Oppland to the east, and Sunnmøre and Sogn og Fjordane to the south, than internally. Differences in dialects between the three districts bear clear evidence of this. Due to geographical features, the county has many populated islands and is intersected by several deep fjords. Due to its difficult terrain, Møre og Romsdal has been very dependent on boat traffic, and its main car ferry company,MRF, has existed since 1921.
Møre og Romsdal has six settlements withtown status. The largest three (Ålesund,Kristiansund, andMolde) were towns long before 1993 when municipalities were given the legal authority to grant town status rather than just the King (and government). This change in law led to an increase in the number of towns (Fosnavåg,Åndalsnes, andUlsteinvik were all added after this time). The county contains many otherurban settlements (as defined byStatistics Norway) without town status, every municipality except forSmøla Municipality contains at least one. As of 1 January 2018, there were 192,331 people (about 72 percent of the population) living in densely populated areas in the county while only 73,946 people lived in sparsely populated areas.[8] The population density is highest near the coast, with all of the county's towns located on saltwater.
Møre og Romsdal is served by nine airports, of which only the four airports located near the four largest centres have regular domestic flights. The largest airport in the county isÅlesund Airport, Vigra, which offers the only scheduled international routes from any airport in Møre og Romsdal. Ålesund Airport had 732,614 passengers in 2006.Kristiansund Airport, Kvernberget, had 364,350 passengers in 2007, whileMolde Airport, Årø, had 401,292, down from 444,677 in 2006.Ørsta–Volda Airport, Hovden, had 49,842 passengers in 2006. None of the airports in Møre og Romsdal offer regular flights to each other.[14]
In 2007, Møre og Romsdal had 6,339 kilometres (3,939 mi) of public roads, an increase of 5 kilometres (3.1 mi) since the previous year, as well as 4,258 kilometres (2,646 mi) of private roads, 7 kilometres (4.3 mi) more than in 2006.[15]
There is one railway, theRauma Line, which starts atÅndalsnes and connects to the main railway network of Norway. Public buses and ferries are operated by the county, using the brand name FRAM.[16]
Economy of the county administration (fylkeskommune)
The county (with its current borders) was established in 1671 - but after just four years (in 1675) it was divided into twoamts (counties): Romsdal (which included Nordmøre) and Sunnmøre (which includedNordfjord). In 1680 (only 5 years later), Sunnmøre (including Nordfjord) was merged intoBergenhus amt. Then in 1689 (another 9 years later), the three regions of Romsdal, Sunnmøre, and Nordmøre were again merged into one amt/county: Romsdalen. Then in 1701 (another 11 years later) Romsdalen amt was split and divided betweenTrondhjems amt (which got Romsdal and Nordmøre) and Bergenhus amt (which got Sunnmøre). In 1704 (a mere 4 years later), the three regions of Romsdal, Sunnmøre, and Nordmøre were again merged into one county. The borders of the county have not been changed much since 1704. The annex parish ofVinje within the largerHemne parish was transferred from Romsdalens amt toSøndre Trondhjems amt in 1838 (according to the 1838Formannskapsdistrikt law, a parish could no longer be divided between two counties, so Vinje had to be in the same county as the rest of the parish).
In 2019, archaeologists from theNorwegian Institute for Cultural Heritage Research, using large-scale high-resolution radar technology, determined that a 17-meter-long Viking ship was buried on the island ofEdøya nearEdøy Church. They estimate the ship's age as over 1,000 years: from the Merovingian or Viking period; the group planned to conduct additional searches in the area. A similar burial was found previously by a NIKU team in 2018, in Gjellestad.[20]
^moderniseringsdepartementet, Kommunal-og (27 October 2017)."Nye kommune- og fylkesnummer fra 2020".Regjeringen.no (in Norwegian).Archived from the original on 21 January 2022. Retrieved21 January 2022.
