Talvik (municipality)


Talvik or Talvig is a former municipality in Finnmark county, Norway. The municipality existed for 101 years, from 1863 until its dissolution in 1964. The municipality included all the coastal areas in the outer Altafjorden in the northern part of what is now Alta Municipality. The administrative centre was the village of Talvik where the Talvik Church is located.

History

The municipality was established in 1863, when the large municipality of Alten-Talvig was dissolved and it was divided into two separate municipalities: Talvik in the north and Alta in the south. During the 1960s, there were many municipal mergers across Norway due to the work of the Schei Committee. On 1 January 1964, the neighboring municipalities of Talvik and Alta were merged to form a new, larger Alta Municipality.

Name

The municipality was named after the old Talvik farm, since Talvik Church was located there. One explanation of the name is that the first element name is derived from the Old Norse word tall meaning "pine" and the last element is víkr meaning "inlet". The other explanation is that Talvik is a corruption of the Northern Sami word Dálbmeluokta which means "fog bay" and translates to Norwegian as tåkebukta.

Government

Municipal council

The municipal council of Talvik was made up of 21 representatives that were elected to four year terms. The party breakdown of the final municipal council was as follows: