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Vegaøyan -- The Vega Archipelago
| Site number: | 1143 |
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| Type of site: | Cultural | |
| Date: | 9th century | |
| Date of Inscription: | 2004 | |
| Location: | Europe, Norway, Nordland, Vega | |
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| Description: | Just south of the Arctic Circle a cultural landscape of 103,710-ha (of which 6,930 is land) is formed by a cluster of dozens of islands centred on Vega. The islands witness a unique prudent way of life within a hostile environment that is based around fishing and the harvesting of the down of eider ducks. The site holds fishing villages, quays, warehouses, eider houses for the nesting of eider ducks, farming landscapes, lighthouses and beacons. Inhabited ever since the Stone Age, the islands became a vital centre for the supply of down by the 9th century, which seems to justify around a third of the islanders’ income. The Vega Archipelago indicates the way fishermen/farmers have sustained a living, for the past 1500 years, and it marks the contribution of women towards eiderdown harvesting. --WHMNet paraphrase from the description at WHC Site, where additional information is available. | |
| The Vega Archipelago, or Vegaøyan in Norwegian, is a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 2004. This cluster of around 6,500 small islands in Nordland just south of the arctic circle surrounds the main island of Vega and is habitated since the Stone Age. It illustrates the human capacities allowing people to survive Nordic conditions in a sea environment. Access to the archipelago is by ferry or fast boat from Brønnøysund, Nordland, which can be reached by plane or by road. --Wikipedia. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License. | ||
| Source: | http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/1143 | |
| Reference: | 1. UNESCO World Heritage Center, Site Page. | |