Stavanger

The southern gateway to the Fjordlands, Stavanger is also the home port of much of the fleet that serves the North Sea oil fields. View its medieval Cathedral, and other highlights of the town, or travel out to Pulpit Rock, a breathtaking vista point high above the fjords.

Stavanger's population has now reached close to 104.000 inhabitants. The parishes of Hetland and Madla were incorporated in Stavanger municipality in 1965, in order to ease further expansion. Building space for homes and industry was running out within the old city limits and the annexation of the two parishes paved the way for the growth required by the oil industry in the next couple of decades.
Stavanger became a bishopric in 1150 and by the 1600's it was one of the most important towns along the Norwegian coast. The bishopric however, was transferred to Kristiansand in 1682 starting on a downward trend. The final blow came when the commercial charter was withdrawn in 1686.
Stavanger eventually recovered. When the first shipload of emigrants on board "Restauration" set sail for America on July 4th, 1825, there were about 4000 inhabitants. Herring had brought prosperity and growth to Stavanger in the previous decades. However, it was not to last; by the end of the 1870s the herring had vanished and in 1883 the economy crashed. A number of the large merchant houses of Stavanger went bankrupt. It was a time of despair, with no visible promise of relief.
Still, Stavanger people have never been able to afford the luxury of giving in to despair for long. They found that there was a living to be made canning food for the growing shipping industry, so canneries multiplied along the waterfront and in every available shed. Wherever herring was salted a while back, sardines were now canned. With Chr. Bjelland in the lead, Stavanger brisling sardines conquered the world market, 50 million tins of sardines went out in just one year. Which, at say just 10 sardines per tin, makes 500 million sardines - laid head to toe by nimble Stavanger fingers. It provided occupation for the women of the town.
Shipping and ship building is also firmly part of Stavanger's history. In addition, Stavanger has always been a commercial centre.
The most abrupt transformation for the city came with the oil industry. Stavanger was chosen for the headquarters of Statoil and the Petroleum Directorate, plus a number of oil companies and related service companies.
When oil was first found in the North Sea, Stavanger had been in yet another period of stagnation. The days of the canning industry were numbered, and since then have become extinct. Today it is only at the Canning Museum where you can see how it was done.