Selbu

Selbu kommune
Municipality
Coat of arms Sør-Trøndelag within Norway
Selbu within Sør-Trøndelag
Coordinates:
Country	Norway
County	Sør-Trøndelag
Administrative centre	Mebonden
Government
• Mayor (2007)	Inga Balstad (Ap)
Area
• Total	1,234.85 km2 (476.78 sq mi)
• Land	1,140.84 km2 (440.48 sq mi)
• Water	94.01 km2 (36.30 sq mi)
Area rank	79 in Norway
Population (2010)
• Total	4,004
• Rank	231 in Norway
• Density	3.5/km2 (9/sq mi)
• Change (10 years)	2.0 %
Demonym(s)	Selbygg
Time zone	CET (UTC+1)
• Summer (DST)	CEST (UTC+2)
ISO 3166 code	NO-1664
Official language form	Neutral
Website	www.selbu.kommune.no
Data from Statistics Norway

Selbu is a municipality in Sør-Trøndelag county, Norway. The administrative centre of the municipality is the village of Mebonden. Other villages in Selbu include Flora, Fossan, Hyttbakken, Innbygda, Selbustrand, Tømra, and Vikvarvet.

General information

The municipality (originally the parish) of Selbu was established on 1 January 1838 (see formannskapsdistrikt). On 1 January 1901, the eastern part of the municipality was separated to form the new municipality of Tydal. This left Selbu with 4,607 inhabitants. The borders of Selbu have not changed since then.

Name

The Old Norse form of the name was Selabú. The first element is the genitive case of the old name of the lake Selbusjøen (Old Norse: Seli). The last element is bú which means "district". (The old name of the lake is probably derived from the word seli which means "harness" since the lake is long and narrow.)

Coat-of-arms

The coat-of-arms is from modern times; they were adopted on 31 May 1991. The arms show a silver background with three black selburoses, designs which are typical for the patterns used in the local lusekofte (traditional Norwegian sweaters) and other woollen garments. Home knitting has been a long tradition in the municipality.

Churches

The Church of Norway has one parish (sokn) within the municipality of Selbu. It is part of the Deanery (prosti) of Stjørdal and the Diocese of Nidaros.

Churches in Selbu

Parish (Sokn)	Church Name	Year Built	Location of the Church
Selbu	Selbu kirke	1150	Mebonden
	Selbustrand kirke	1901	Selbustrand
	Flora kapell	1936	Flora

Geography

Selbu borders nine municipalities. The municipalities of Trondheim, Malvik, and Stjørdal are to the north; Meråker and Tydal are to the east; Tydal, Holtålen, and Midtre Gauldal are to the south; and Melhus and Klæbu are to the west.

The largest lake in Selbu is Selbusjøen with an area of 60 square kilometres (23 sq mi). It is located 160 metres (520 ft) above sea level. Another lake in the municipality is Sørungen. The highest mountain in Selbu is the 1,441-metre (4,728 ft) tall mountain Fongen, located inside Skarvan and Roltdalen National Park. The Nea River and Rotla River both flow through the municipality. The municipality covers a total of 1,254 square kilometres (484 sq mi) which consists of:

Land use in Selbu

Land type	Area
	square kilometres	square miles	percentage
Freshwater lakes and rivers	85	33	6.8
Agriculture	31	12	2.5
Woodlands	308	119	14.7
Swampland and mountains	830	320	66.0
Note:

Transportation

The main road through Selbu is Rv705 (Stjørdal - Selbu - Tydal). Selbu is located near important destinations:

Destination	Distance
	kilometres	miles
Stjørdal	45	28
Trondheim Airport, Værnes	40	25
Trondheim	70	43
Ås (Tydal)	45	28
Røros	120	75

Economy

Traditionally, Selbu has been an agricultural and forest managing community. The area is well known for its special knitting techniques. The last decades have led to efforts in business such as high technology, electronics, and mechanics.

External links

• Sør-Trøndelag travel guide from Wikivoyage
• Municipal fact sheet from Statistics Norway