Prior to its dissolution in 2020, the 1,616-square-kilometre (624 sq mi) municipality was the 42nd largest by area out of the 422 municipalities in Norway. Odda is the 150th most populous municipality in Norway with a population of 7,025. The municipality's population density is 4.8 inhabitants per square kilometre (12/sq mi) and its population has decreased by 1.8% over the last decade.[4]
In 1927, Erling Johnson, working at Odda Smelteverk, invented a process to produce three-component, NPKfertilizers. This process is now known as the Odda process.
The municipality of Odda was established on 1 July 1913 when the southern district of Ullensvang was separated out to form its own municipality. Initially, Odda had 3,077 residents. During the 1960s, there were many municipal mergers across Norway due to the work of the Schei Committee. On 1 January 1964, the neighboring municipality of Røldal (population: 676) was merged into Odda, bringing the total population of the new municipality to 10,163 residents.[5]
On 1 January 2020, the three neighboring municipalities of Jondal, Odda, and Ullensvang were merged. The new municipality is called Ullensvang and its administrative centre is the town of Odda.[6]
Name
The municipality (originally the parish) is named after the old Odda farm (Old Norse: Oddi) since the first Odda Church was built there. The name is identical with the word oddi which means "headland".[7]
Coat of arms
The coat of arms was granted on 8 October 1982 and it was in use until 1 January 2020 when the municipality was dissolved. The official blazon is "Azure, an arrowhead argent" (Norwegian: På blå grunn ein opprett sølv pilodd). This means the arms have a blue field (background) and the charge is an arrowhead (Norwegian: pilodd) that is pointing upwards. The arrowhead has a tincture of argent which means it is commonly colored white, but if it is made out of metal, then silver is used. The arms are somewhat canting arms since the name of the municipality means headland or point. However, the arrowhead was also chosen because it symbolises power and movement. This is seen as reflecting the strength of will of the community and also the production of hydroelectric power and the important industries based on it. The colors are interpreted as representing the white of the Folgefonna glacier and the snowcapped mountains surrounding Odda and the blue of the fjord cutting deep into the landscape to reach the municipality. The arms were designed by Hallvard Trætteberg. The municipal flag has the same design as the coat of arms.[8][9][10]
Tysso I power stationOffices of Odda Smelteverk, former North Western Cyanamide Company and Alby United Carbide Factory, 1906.
The Røldal Stave Church was built in the years 1200–1250 in the present-day village of Røldal. This was one of the oldest structures in the municipality.
During the 19th century, Odda became a significant tourist destination. Visits ranged from English pioneers around 1830 to the German Emperor Kaiser Wilhelm II, who visited Odda every year between 1891 and 1914. This led to the construction of several hotels in the municipality.
Odda Municipality was centred on the modern town of Odda which grew up around smelters built at the head of the Sørfjorden branch of the Hardangerfjord in the mid-twentieth century, drawing migrants from different parts of Norway.[11]
The carbide production and the subsequent production of cyanamide was started in 1908 after the water power plant was operational and provided the necessary electricity for the arc furnaces. The plant was the largest in the world and remained operational till 2003 shortly after the plant was sold to Philipp Brothers Chemicals Inc. The Norwegian government tried to get the site recognized together with other industrial plants as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.[12][13][14] In 2010 an international report stated: What makes Odda smelteverk so important and central to the application of Norway’s hydro power sites and pioneer chemical industry as a World Heritage Site is the fact that here in an internationally unique way the physical remains of an early chemical production process are still present.[15]
Dialect
Lake Votna
Odda grew up around this smelter in the early-twentieth century, drawing migrants from different parts of Norway. As a result, there developed a new dialect, a mixture of that spoken in the home regions of the migrants - a phenomenon termed by linguists "a Koiné language". The town of Odda and neighboring village of Tyssedal - which arose in the same time and socio-economic circumstances as those of Odda - provided valuable insights to linguists studying this phenomenon. The researcher Paul Kerswill conducted an intensive study of the Norwegian spoken in the two communities, relating them to very different geographical origins: The workers in Odda came predominantly (86%) from western Norway. In Tyssedal only about one third came from western Norway; one third came from eastern Norway; and the rest from other parts of the country. The dialects that evolved in these two communities were radically different from each other, though spoken at a short geographical distance from each other.
Population
Historical population
Year
1913
1920
1930
1946
1951
1960
1970
1980
1990
2000
2010
2019
Pop.
3,077
6,223
7,705
8,267
8,807
9,584
10,051
9,183
8,289
7,727
7,047
6,745
±% p.a.
—
+10.58%
+2.16%
+0.44%
+1.27%
+0.94%
+0.48%
−0.90%
−1.02%
−0.70%
−0.92%
−0.49%
Note: The municipal borders were changed in 1964, causing a significant change in the population. Source: Statistics Norway[16][17] and Norwegian Historical Data Centre[18]
The municipal council(Kommunestyre) of Odda was made up of 27 representatives that were elected to four year terms. The party breakdown of the final municipal council was as follows:
Odda Hospital provides health services to the inhabitants of Hardanger. The ambulance station, Folgefonn DPS Odda and the municipal hospital are also located in the hospital area. The population can also receive health services at local health stations.
In popular culture
The town is used as the backdrop for the fictional town of Edda in the Netflix Norwegian-language drama series Ragnarok.
^Heiden, Noland R (1952). "Odda and Rjukan: Two Industrialized Areas of Norway". Annals of the Association of American Geographers. 42 (2): 109–128. doi:10.1080/00045605209352058. JSTOR2560975.
^Torpey, Paul (3 October 2007). "Industrial revolution". The Guardian. London. Archived from the original on 28 February 2014. Retrieved 19 November 2012.
^"Kommunestyrevalget 1995"(PDF) (in Norwegian). Oslo-Kongsvinger: Statistisk sentralbyrå. 1996. Archived(PDF) from the original on 20 September 2014. Retrieved 14 May 2020.
^"Kommunestyrevalget 1991"(PDF) (in Norwegian). Oslo-Kongsvinger: Statistisk sentralbyrå. 1993. Archived(PDF) from the original on 22 May 2015. Retrieved 14 May 2020.
^"Kommunestyrevalget 1987"(PDF) (in Norwegian). Oslo-Kongsvinger: Statistisk sentralbyrå. 1988. Archived(PDF) from the original on 19 October 2014. Retrieved 14 May 2020.
^"Kommunestyrevalget 1983"(PDF) (in Norwegian). Oslo-Kongsvinger: Statistisk sentralbyrå. 1984. Archived(PDF) from the original on 19 October 2014. Retrieved 14 May 2020.
^"Kommunestyrevalget 1979"(PDF) (in Norwegian). Oslo: Statistisk sentralbyrå. 1979. Archived(PDF) from the original on 29 September 2014. Retrieved 14 May 2020.
^"Kommunevalgene 1975"(PDF) (in Norwegian). Oslo: Statistisk sentralbyrå. 1977. Archived(PDF) from the original on 15 March 2016. Retrieved 14 May 2020.
^"Kommunevalgene 1972"(PDF) (in Norwegian). Oslo: Statistisk sentralbyrå. 1973. Archived(PDF) from the original on 21 April 2016. Retrieved 14 May 2020.
^"Kommunevalgene 1967"(PDF) (in Norwegian). Oslo: Statistisk sentralbyrå. 1967. Archived(PDF) from the original on 21 April 2016. Retrieved 14 May 2020.
^"Kommunevalgene 1963"(PDF) (in Norwegian). Oslo: Statistisk sentralbyrå. 1964. Archived(PDF) from the original on 21 April 2016. Retrieved 14 May 2020.
−1.8%
