Alta

Alta belongs to Finnmark, the northern Norwegian county that forms part of Sápmi and the Barents region. The district lies just below the 70th parallel at the head of the Altafjord, closer to the North Pole than to much of Central Europe. Despite the latitude, the Gulf Stream softens the climate, and the lower ground is covered by boreal forest, while the midnight sun and the polar night each last for weeks. The name comes from the fjord, and may derive from an Old Norse word for swan or from a Finnish word for lowland.

People have lived here for thousands of years. The rock carvings near the Jiepmaluokta bay, made between about 7000 and 500 BC, show hunters, animals and boats, and the Komsa culture takes its name from a mountain in the district. The district is a homeland of the Sámi, who made up most of the population in much of the interior, while the fjord areas were long ethnically mixed. Norwegians had lived on the outer islands for centuries, and coastal settlement by Norwegians began in the tenth century. Water routes and sheltered land shaped where different communities settled and how they connected.