Modalen

Modalen kommune
—  Municipality  —
Coat of arms Hordaland within Norway
Modalen within Hordaland
Coordinates: 60°52′50″N 5°55′31″E / 60.88056°N 5.92528°E / 60.88056; 5.92528Coordinates: 60°52′50″N 5°55′31″E / 60.88056°N 5.92528°E / 60.88056; 5.92528
Country	Norway
County	Hordaland
District	Nordhordland
Administrative centre	Modalen
Government
- Mayor (2006)	Knut Moe (Local List)
Area
- Total	412 km2 (159.1 sq mi)
- Land	381 km2 (147.1 sq mi)
Area rank	236 in Norway
Population (2008)
- Total	360
- Rank	429 in Norway
- Density	0.9/km2 (2.3/sq mi)
- Change (10 years)	5.3 %
Demonym	Modøl[1]
Time zone	CET (UTC+1)
- Summer (DST)	CEST (UTC+2)
ISO 3166 code	NO-1252
Official language form	Nynorsk
Website	modalen.kommune.no
Data from Statistics Norway

Historical populations
Year	Pop.	±%
1951	627	—
1960	544	−13.2%
1970	295	−45.8%
1980	313	+6.1%
1990	340	+8.6%
2000	354	+4.1%
2007	356	+0.6%
2008	360	+1.1%
2009	351	−2.5%
Source: Statistics Norway.

Modalen is a municipality in the county of Hordaland, Norway. Modalen was separated from Hosanger on 1 January 1910. The middle part of Eksingedalen was transferred from Modalen to Vaksdal on 1 January 1964.

General information

Name

The municipality (originally the parish) is named after the farm Mo (Old Norse Mór), since the first church was built there. The name is identical with the word mór which means "heath" or "moor". The last element -dalen (the finite form of dal which means "valley" or "dale") was added later.

Coat-of-arms

The coat-of-arms is from modern times. They were granted on 2 November 1984. The arms show three spades as a symbol for the agriculture and sand digging in the municipality, which historically were of great importance.^[2]

References

1. ^ "Personnemningar til stadnamn i Noreg" (in Norwegian). Språkrådet. http://www.sprakrad.no/nb-no/Sprakhjelp/Rettskrivning_Ordboeker/Innbyggjarnamn/. 
2. ^ Norske Kommunevåpen (1990). "Nye kommunevåbener i Norden". http://www.ngw.nl/int/nor/m/modalen.htm. Retrieved 21 September 2008.