Prior to its dissolution in 1964, the 1,650-square-kilometre (640 sq mi) municipality was the 36th largest by area out of the 689 municipalities in Norway. Talvik Municipality was the 268th most populous municipality in Norway with a population of about 3,378 (in 1963). The municipality's population density was 2 inhabitants per square kilometre (5.2/sq mi).[7][8]
History
The municipality was established in 1863, when the large Alten-Talvig Municipality was dissolved and it was divided into two separate municipalities: Talvik Municipality (population: 1,938) in the north and Alta Municipality (population: 2,442) 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 (population: 3,266) and Alta (population: 6,629) were merged to form a new, larger Alta Municipality.[9]
Name
The municipality is named after the old Talvik farm since the first Talvik Church was built there. The first element of the name is rather uncertain. If the first element was of Old Norse origin then it is derived from the word Þelli which means "pine" (due to the large number of pine trees in the area). The other explanation is that it is a corruption of the Northern Sami word Dálbme or the longer name Dálbmeluokta which translates as "fog" or "fog bay". The early Norwegian settlers would have translated that as tåkebukta (meaning "fog bay") and this could have been corrupted from tåke to tal. The last element of the name is vík which means "inlet" or "cove". Historically, the name was spelled Talvig using the old Danish spelling, and later it was "Norwegianized" to Talvik.[6][10]
Note: Leirbotn Chapel burned down in 1990 and it was rebuilt in 1993.
Geography
The municipality was located along the outer Altafjorden. The municipality also included the southern parts of the islands of Seiland and Stjernøya. The highest point was the 1,149-metre (3,770 ft) tall mountain Store Haldi, located on the border with Alta Municipality to the south.[1]
The municipal council(Herredsstyre) of Talvik was made up of 21 representatives that were elected to four year terms. The tables below show the historical composition of the council by political party.