page_title: Hjelmeland
section_title: General information
hierarchical_section_title: Hjelmeland / General information
caption_attribution_description: Polski: Stary most kamienny, Hjelmelandsvågen
context_page_description: Hjelmeland is a municipality in Rogaland county, Norway. It is located in the traditional district of Ryfylke. The administrative centre of the municipality is the village of Hjelmelandsvågen. Other villages in the municipality include Fister, Årdal, and Jøsenfjorden.
  Hjelmeland is known for its fruit and fish production. Salmon has been important for the fish industry in Hjelmeland for a couple of decades, but white fish such as cod and halibut has increased its value in the latter years.
  The 1,068-square-kilometre municipality is the 105th largest by area out of the 356 municipalities in Norway. Hjelmeland is the 248th most populous municipality in Norway with a population of 2,574. The municipality's population density is 2.7 inhabitants per square kilometre and its population has decreased by 6.2% over the previous 10-year period.
context_section_description: Hjelmeland was established as a municipality on 1 January 1838 (see formannskapsdistrikt law). In 1859, Hjelmeland municipality was split into two: the southern portion of the municipality (population: 1,315) was split off to form the new municipality of Årdal and the remainder of the municipality became the municipality of Hjelmeland og Fister (population: 3,084). On 1 July 1884, the western islands and the western coast of the mainland (population: 832) were split off from Hjelmeland og Fister to form the new municipality of Fister and the rest of the municipality was renamed simply "Hjelmeland" which now had 2,249 residents.
  During the 1960s, there were many municipal mergers across Norway due to the work of the Schei Committee. On 1 January 1965, all of Hjelemland municipality (population: 1,691) was merged with most of the municipality of Årdal (except the Sundgardene area along the Årdalsfjorden), the mainland part and the island of Randøy from the municipality of Fister, and the small Buergårdene area on Ombo from the municipality of Jelsa. The population of the newly enlarged Hjelemland was 2,909; nearly doubling the size of the municipal population.
  On 1 January 2020, the parts of Hjelmeland municipality that were located on the island of Ombo were transferred to the neighboring Stavanger Municipality so that the whole island would be part of the same municipality.
caption: View of an old stone bridge in Hjelmeland
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