Stavern

Stavern sits just west of the entrance to the Larviksfjord, with the skerries right outside. About 6.200 people live here, in the second town of Larvik municipality, and in summer the hotels, guesthouses and campsites around it fill up with holiday guests. Much of what you see goes back to its navy years: the brick church, the old naval yard at Fredriksvern and, just offshore, Citadelløya, a small island with a stone tower and ramparts.

Local knowledge: the name goes back to Old Norse Staferni, from stafr, a staff or pole, but nobody knows why, maybe a farm called Staurheim, maybe the steep crags along the shore. For a hundred years this was the main base of the Danish-Norwegian navy in Norway. In 1750 the king ordered a yard here for building galleys, oared warships for the skerries, since Copenhagen and the Swedish coast were close and two channels let ships sail out in different winds. The base was named Fredriksvern after King Frederik V, and so was the town until 1930. More than 50 large vessels were built here, and a naval cadet school opened in 1817. Then the yard moved to Horten around 1850, the school followed in 1864, and the town went quiet. Painters, writers and summer guests came instead. Stavern got town status in 1943, as the smallest town in Norway.

Born here: Peter Andreas Blix (1831–1901) designed the railway stations in Halden and Fredrikstad and Fleischer's Hotel at Voss, and restored Hopperstad stave church in Sogn. Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen (1848–1895) emigrated to America in 1869, became a professor at Columbia in New York and was one of the first realist novelists there.

Visiting: the pin is on Stavern torg in the centre. Fredriksvern verft, the old naval yard, has galleries and small museums in its buildings, and its row of galley sheds is the only one of its kind in Norway. Fredriksvern kirke from 1756, red with yellow pilasters under a blue glazed roof, was designed by the yard's own commander. In summer a boat goes out to Citadelløya, where the powder tower from 1689 is used for exhibitions. On the hill just south of the yard stands Minnehallen, a 22-metre pyramid opened by King Haakon VII in 1926. Down in the crypt, the names of about 8.000 merchant seamen lost in the two world wars are cut into copper plates. It's open daily from mid-May to the end of August, a good place to be when it rains. The coastal path Kyststien starts in Stavern and follows the shore west to Helgeroa.

Fact sheet

• People: 6.159 in Stavern, 49.022 in Larvik municipality
• County: Vestfold
• Town since: 1943 (as a trading town)
• Typical industries: building construction, wholesale trade, food production

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).