Larvik kommune Stadium

Larvik (Urban East Norwegian: [ˈlɑ̂rviːk] (listen)) is a town and municipality in Vestfold in Vestfold og Telemark county, Norway. The administrative centre of the municipality is the city of Larvik. The municipality of Larvik has about 46,364 inhabitants. The municipality has a 110 km coastline, only shorter than that of neighbouring Sandefjord.

The city achieved market town status in 1671. Larvik was established as a municipality on 1 January 1838 (see formannskapsdistrikt). The city of Stavern, and the rural municipalities of Brunlanes, Hedrum, and Tjolling were forcefully merged into the municipality of Larvik on 1 January 1988. On 1 January 2018, neighboring Lardal was merged into Larvik as part of a nationwide municipal reform. After the merge, Larvik is the largest municipality in Vestfold by area, and the second-most populous municipality in the Vestfold district.

Larvik is known as the hometown of Thor Heyerdahl. It is also home to Bokeskogen, the northernmost beech tree forest in the world. It is also home of Norway's only natural mineral water spring, Farriskilden.Farris Bad has been described as one of the best spas in Europe. It has the largest spa department in Scandinavia.

Larvik has a daily ferry connection to Hirtshals, Denmark.

History

Various remains from the Stone Age have been discovered in Larvik, for instance by Torpevannet by Helgeroa village. Raet goes through all of Vestfold County before peaking out of the ocean in Molen. Ancient peoples have carried rocks from Raet and constructed vast numbers of burial mounds at Molen. During the Roman Iron Age, ancient peoples erected a stone monument resembling a ship at Istrehagan, one of Norway's greatest remains ("oldtidsminne") from prehistoric times. Immediately across the Sandefjord border by Istrehagan is Haugen farm, which is the largest petroglyph site in Vestfold County.

Kaupang in Skiringssal is an archaeological site where archaeologists first discovered burial mounds, and later uncovered the rema