The Naze

1600: "A Description of Norway"

"This Naze is known to all Seafarers that sail the Western Sea, since at this point and from this point they must set their Course North or South along the Coast"

Peder Claussøn Friis, historian and rector of Valle in southern Norway



The southern tip of Norway

has always been an important landfall for seafarers in the North Sea and the Skagerrak.

The name “Lindesnes” comes from the Old Norse “Lidandisnes”: The point where the land sinks into the sea.

This meeting place of the two seas has also been called "Lidelsens Nes", or the "Naze of Anguish", where currents and winds reign over life and death, and where many a young sailor has been both baptised and confirmed.

Northern Europe’s most important trade route

Even since the Middle Ages, the seaway between the North Sea and the Baltic Sea has been one of Northern Europe’s most important trade routes.

As early as the 1200s the Hanseatic League had built up an extensive trade between southern Sweden and Norway, the so-called Ummeland trade, with their trading vessels, the cogs.

By the 1500s the Dutch had taken over this trade.They demanded better marking of the narrow waterway between the Kattegat and the Øresund. This led to the founding of the Danish lighthouse service in 1560.