Norway has contributed the word fjord to world languages to name the Norwegian waterways that wind inland from the coasts. Fjords can be found along the entire length of the Norwegian coastline. Each one has good reasons to be called the most beautiful, but the best known fjords are found in the western part of Norway. The fjords that were formed when the glaciers receded are unique in the world.  

Because of the enormous weight of the ice masses pressing down the land, most fjords are "threshold" fjords - very shallow at the mouth and up to 1000 m (3281 feet) deep in the inner reaches. While there are long lush fields stretching down to the edge of the water in some places, in others the surrounding mountains plunge straight into the fjord.

Through the centuries, nature has not only made life easy for people. Humbly subjected to nature's moods, people have for thousands of years settled along the inlets. Right up to the present day people have lived on mountain farms, with the sea as their sole connection with the rest of the world. It was much easier to use a boat than build roads to every single farm and community along the long, wide fjords.

Getting up to the farms is very difficult. In some places the rock face is so steep that you have to use a ladder. One farmer, who didn't like to pay taxes, was known to remove the ladder when the tax collector came, and

thereby avoid paying.

Those who chose to settle far up the mountainsides often had to tie children with a rope to stop them from falling into the fjord while playing. They built rope and pulley systems and ladders to ease the ascent, and kept animals to make themselves as self-sufficient as possible.

Geirangerfjorden

Geirangerfjorden is by many considered to be Norway's most beautiful, and is also probably the one most visited by tourists. The S-shaped waters of of the fjord is 16 km (10 miles) long, and it is about 300 m (984 feet) deep.

The precipitous mountainsides are up to 1700 m (5577 feet). Waterfalls plunges down the mountainsides, dropping from heights of up to 250 m (820 feet). Two of the best known are "The Seven Sisters" and "The Bridal Veil".

The mountainsides are scattered with ruins of abandoned farms, built by fanatically optimistic settlers over the last couple of centuries.

Sognefjorden

Europe's longest fjord, Sognefjorden, stretches deep into the country and meets Jotunheimen and the Jostedalsbreen Glacier. It is 205 km (127 miles) long, and 1308 m (4291 feet) at the deepest. Sognefjorden's cliff faces of layered rock strata are trimmed with lacy waterfalls and topped by fields of ice and snow.

Lysefjorden

Prekestolen (Pulpit Rock) is a rock plateau, 25 x 25 m (82 x 82 feet), and practically flat as a dance floor.