Reinheimen

Reinheimen National Park was established in 2006 in southern Norway, between the counties of Innlandet and Møre og Romsdal, and at some 1,970 km² it is one of the largest in the country. Its name means "home of the reindeer" and announces its reason for being.

Together with the neighbouring parks it forms one of the largest expanses of country without roads or major infrastructure left in Norway and in western Europe. Its relief is highly varied: it alternates broad, open high plateaux with deeply incised valleys, gorges, alpine summits and a mosaic of clear-water lakes and rivers.

The park protects one of the last wild mountain reindeer populations in Europe, a lineage distinct from the semi-domestic reindeer of Lapland and regarded as an international responsibility of Norway. Reindeer hunting in these mountains goes back thousands of years: extensive trapping systems and structures for driving animals have been documented in the high ground, forming one of the most remarkable archaeological hunting complexes in northern Europe. The melting of the permanent snowfields is bringing to light objects of wood and leather and arrows preserved in the ice for centuries, and has turned the area into a reference field for glacial archaeology.