Lødingen is a municipality in Nordland county in Norway. Lødingen is located on the southeastern corner of the island of Hinnøya, and is part of the traditional district of Ofoten. The administrative centre of the municipality is the village of Lødingen. The other main part of the municipality is Vestbygda. Lødingen has the nickname "Biketown" because it hosts several annual bicycle races, including "Lofoten Insomnia" and Vestbygd-rittet.
Lødingen City seen from Hjertholmen lighthouse
View north into Tjeldsundet from just north of Lødingen village
Saami family near Kanstad, Lødingen, 1896. Some of the descendants of the children in the photograph are reindeer herders in the area to this date [1].
E10 road in Lødingen, May 2011.
Hinnøya is the fourth-largest island in Norway, and the largest outside the Svalbard archipelago. The 2,204.7-square-kilometre (851.2 sq mi) lies just off the western coast of Northern Norway. The island sits on the border of Nordland and Troms counties. The western part of the island is in the district of Vesterålen, the southwestern part is in the Lofoten district, the southeastern part is in the Ofoten district, and the northeastern part is in Troms.
As of 2017, Hinnøya had a population of 32,688. The only town on the island is the town of Harstad. Some of the larger villages include Borkenes, Lødingen, Sigerfjord, and Sørvik. The island is split between the municipalities of Harstad, Tjeldsund and Kvæfjord in Troms county, as well as Andøy, Hadsel, Lødingen, Sortland, and Vågan in Nordland county.
View of Gullesfjordbotn, at the head of Gullesfjorden, partly a nature reserve
Dale, Kvæfjord, northern Hinnøya
Eastern Hinnøya facing Tjeldsundet in April. The highest mountain is Strandtinden (1,076 m) on southeastern Hinnøya
View towards Kasfjord, Harstad