Smøla

Author:Laxman Burdak, IFS (Retd.)

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Smøla is a municipality in Møre og Romsdal county, Norway. It is part of the Nordmøre region. The administrative centre of the municipality is the village of Hopen, other villages include Dyrnes, Råket, and Veiholmen.

Variants

• Old Norse: Smyl or Smjöl
• Danish word Smule

Jat Gotras Namesake

• Samal = Smøla

Name

The municipality is named after the main island of Smøla (Old Norse: Smyl or Smjöl). The name is probably related to the Danish word smule or the modern Norwegian word smuldre which both mean "crumble", referring to the thousands of small islands and islets around the main island. Researchers at the Technical University of Berlin have claimed that Smøla is the island which Pytheas called Thule (Greek: Θούλη, Thoúl).

References

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