The historic village of Bruland is located just east of the town of
F�rde. European Route E39 goes through the municipality, and it passes
by the lake Holsavatnet.
F�rde Airport, Bringeland is the regional
airport that is about 16 kilometres (9.9 mi) from the town centre and it
has flights that connect Oslo and Bergen with F�rde. The largest
hospital in Sogn og Fjordane county and the regional offices of the
Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation are located in the town. The
International F�rde Folk Music Festival is held each summer. The local
newspaper is called Firda.
F�rde was established as a municipality on
1 January 1838 (see formannskapsdistrikt). The original municipality
was identical to the F�rde parish (prestegjeld) with the sub-parishes
(sokn) of F�rde, Holsen, and Naustdal.
On 1 January 1896, the
sub-parish of Naustdal (population: 2,543) was separated from F�rde and
it became a municipality of its own. This left F�rde with 2,903
residents. On 1 January 1964, the areas of Naustdal south of the
F�rdefjorden (population: 265) were transferred to F�rde.
Name
The
municipality (originally the parish) is named after the F�rde farm (Old
Norse Fj?r�r nominative and Fir�i dative) since the first church was
built there. The name is identical with the word fj?r�r which means
fjord (referring to the fjord now called F�rdefjorden).
Coat-of-arms
The coat-of-arms is from modern times (1990). It shows three plowshares
