Sandnes is a city and municipality in Rogaland, Norway. It lies immediately south of Stavanger, the 4th largest city in Norway, and together the Stavanger/Sandnes area is the third-largest urban area in Norway. The urban city of Sandnes lies in the extreme western part of the vast municipality and it makes up about 5% of the total land area of the municipality.

Stavanger is a city and municipality in Norway. It is the third largest city and third largest metropolitan area in Norway and the administrative center of Rogaland county. The municipality is the fourth most populous in Norway. Located on the Stavanger Peninsula in southwest Norway, Stavanger counts its official founding year as 1125, the year the Stavanger Cathedral was completed. Stavanger's core is to a large degree 18th- and 19th-century wooden houses that are protected and considered part of the city's cultural heritage. This has caused the town center and inner city to retain a small-town character with an unusually high ratio of detached houses, and has contributed significantly to spreading the city's population growth to outlying parts of Greater Stavanger.