The large municipality of Lenvik was established on 1 January 1838. In 1848, most of the mainland parts of Lenvik was separated to form the new Målselv Municipality, leaving Lenvik with 3,029 residents. Then in 1855, the northern part of Lenvik was separated to form the new municipality of Hillesøy. This left Lenvik with 2,757 inhabitants. On 1 January 1871, a small part of Lenvik was transferred to the neighboring municipality of Malangen. During the 1960s, there were many municipal mergers across Norway due to the work of the Schei Committee. On 1 January 1964, many several neighboring areas were merged into Lenvik:
the part of Hillesøy Municipality on the island of Senja and the whole island of Hekkingen
These areas joined to old areas of Lenvik to form a new, larger municipality of Lenvik with a total population of 10,219. In March 2017, the Parliament of Norway voted to merge the municipalities of Berg, Torsken, Lenvik, and Tranøy. The new municipality will encompass the whole island of Senja plus part of the mainland located between the Gisundet strait and the Malangen fjord. The new municipality was established on 1 January 2020 and it was named Senja Municipality.
Name
The municipality is named after the old Lenvik farm, since the first Lenvik Church was built there. The first element is the genitive case of the river name Lengja and the last element is vík which means "cove" or "wick". The river name is derived from the wordlangr which means "long". From 1889-1908, the name was spelled Lenviken.
Coat of arms
The coat of arms was granted on 22 August 1986. The arms show three gold oars on a blue background. The oars and color blue are a symbol for the fishing and sailing in the municipality. To distinguish the arms from those from many other fishing towns, the oar was chosen as a symbol.
The first church was built around 1150 at Bjorelvnes, and for a century, this was the northernmost church inthe world. Important villages in the past include Klauva and Gibostad. Gibostad was the administrative centre until the 1960s, when the administration was moved to Finnsnes. In 2000, Finnsnes was declared a town.
Geography
The municipality of Lenvik lies partly on the island of Senja and also on the mainland of Norway. The Malangen fjord flows along the northern boundary and the Solbergfjorden lies on the southern boundary. The Gisundet strait runs north-south through the center of the municipality with only one road crossing, the Gisund Bridge. The municipalities of Berg and Tranøy border the municipality to the west, the municipality of Tromsø is to the north, the municipalities of Balsfjord and Målselv are to the east, and the municipalities of Sørreisa and Dyrøy are to the south.
The municipal council of Lenvik was made up of 31 representatives that were elected to four year terms. The party breakdown of the final municipal council was as follows:
