Altafjord
| Altafjord Álaheaivuotna |
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 Altafjord. Part of Alta is visible on the left. The bay in the background is the Kåfjord . |
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| Waters | European Arctic Ocean | |
| Land mass | Scandinavian peninsula | |
| Geographical location | 70 ° 11 ′ 8 ″ N , 23 ° 6 ′ 0 ″ E | |
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The Altafjord ( Sami : Álaheaivuotna ) is a 30 km long fjord in Troms og Finnmark , Northern Norway . It is the westernmost of the five great fjords in the former Finnmark province .
geography
The Altafjord lies between the municipality of Alta in the south and the Arctic Ocean in the north. At Alta the Altaelv flows into the fjord. The Altafjord has several branches, of which the Kåfjord and Langfjord are the most famous.
Attractions
On the south bank of the Altafjord, immediately west of the city of Alta, 2000 to 6200 year old Neolithic and Bronze Age rock carvings were found in autumn 1972 . Today they can be viewed in the Alta Museum , an archaeological open-air museum , on approximately 2.9 km of sidewalks. The museum has been on the UNESCO list of World Heritage Sites since December 1985 . The number of petroglyphs in the Alta area is estimated to be around 4,000, which can be seen in four different areas. The Alta Museum area is the largest of the four areas.
history
During the Second World War , the Altafjord served as a base for the German navy . The Kåfjord was used as an anchorage for the battleship Tirpitz and two British micro-submarines seriously damaged the Tirpitz there in 1943. The battleship Scharnhorst was temporarily stationed in the Langfjord .
