Haugesund

Haugesund faces Karmsundet, the sheltered strait between the mainland and the island of Karmøy, and still one of the busiest shipping lanes in Norway. The centre is a grid of straight streets along Smedasundet, a narrow sound with bridges over to the islands Risøy and Hasseløy. Haraldsgata, the main street, runs one block in from the quays.

The sea still pays the bills. Aibel builds and maintains oil and gas platforms at the old Haugesund Mekaniske Verksted yard, and the subsea company DeepOcean and the Norwegian Maritime Authority are based here. At the end of August the town hosts the Norwegian International Film Festival, held here every year since 1987, and Norway's film awards, the Amanda, are handed out during the festival. The name is Old Norse Haugasund, the sound by the farm Haugar, from haugr, a mound.

Local knowledge: herring made Haugesund. Early in the 1800s the herring began to come back to the coast every year, and an export harbour was needed between Stavanger and Bergen for all that salted fish. Haugesund became a ladested in 1854 with 1.066 people and a kjøpstad in 1866 with about 3.200, and by 1910 it had more than 9.100. Herring boats filled Smedasundet, shipyards and shipowners followed, and at one time the town had the third largest merchant fleet in Norway. When the herring vanished, the ships kept Haugesund going. The three gulls on the town arms still stand for the herring and the sea.

Born here: Jon Fosse (born 1959) grew up in Strandebarm in Hardanger and in 2023 won the Nobel Prize in Literature, the first writer in Nynorsk to get it. Susanne Sundfør (born 1986) writes and sings art pop that borrows from electronica, jazz and classical music.

Visiting: the pin points to the tourist information at Haraldsgata 131, open all year. About 3 km north stands Haraldshaugen, the national monument raised in 1872, a thousand years after the battle of Hafrsfjord, where the sagas say Harald Fairhair made Norway one kingdom. A 17 metre granite obelisk rises from a burial mound ringed by 29 stones, one for each of the old fylker. Snorre wrote that Harald was buried at Haug by Karmsund, but nobody can say for sure that this is the spot. Haraldshaugen Camping is right next to it. On a rainy day, Haugesund Billedgalleri by the city park has works by Munch, Hertervig and Astrup (closed Mondays). Across the Karmsund bridge lies Avaldsnes, Harald's royal farm, with St Olav's church from about 1250 and the Nordvegen History Centre, built almost entirely underground. A six metre standing stone leans against the church wall, and legend says the world ends when it touches.

Fact sheet

• People: 47.597 in Haugesund, 38.663 in Haugesund municipality
• County: Rogaland
• Town since: 1854 (as a loading place), kjøpstad 1866
• Typical industries: subsea and offshore oil and gas services, staffing and ship crewing agencies, Haugesund hospital and other health care

Population on 1 January 2026, from Statistics Norway. Typical industries are the ones with a much bigger share of the jobs here than in Norway as a whole (Statistics Norway, 2025).