Hølen
settlement in Vestby Municipality, Norway
Hølen is a village and former town and municipality in Akershus county, Norway.
Hølen was in early times known for the production of timber, and from the 17th century important trade took place. Timber was floated on the river Såna. Ships from the Netherlands visited the place.
The small town of Hølen was, together with the small town of Son, established as a municipality January 1, 1838 (see formannskapsdistrikt). Son and Hølen were separated as municipalities of their own January 1, 1848. Hølen was merged with the rural municipality Vestby July 1, 1943 – and it then lost its status as a town.
Hølen is the smallest municipality (in area) that has ever existed in Norway – the total area was just 0.12 km2.
The Østfold Line was completed in 1879. It was placed on the Hølen Viaduct which crosses over the town.
The public source identifies “Hølen” as settlement in Vestby Municipality, Norway. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Hølen, settlement and Vestby.
Why this record matters
A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Hølen”, the useful work is to connect “settlement in Vestby Municipality, Norway” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.
Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Dec 13, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q2208175. Authority coordinates are 59.540, 10.742. None of the 1 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1838, 1848, 1943 and 1879.
The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
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- Subject orientation
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The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Hølen”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Hølen primary sources, Hølen archive and Hølen research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
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This entry incorporates text from “Hølen” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.