Hjerkinn is a village

Village

A village is a clustered human settlement or community, larger than a hamlet with the population ranging from a few hundred to a few thousand , Though often located in rural areas, the term urban village is also applied to certain urban neighbourhoods, such as the West Village in Manhattan, New...

 in Dovre

Dovre

Dovre is a municipality in Oppland county, Norway. It is part of the traditional region of Dovre. The administrative centre of the municipality is the village of Dovre....

, Oppland

Oppland

is a county in Norway, bordering Sør-Trøndelag, Møre og Romsdal, Sogn og Fjordane, Buskerud, Akershus, Oslo and Hedmark. The county administration is in Lillehammer. Oppland is, together with Hedmark, one of the only two landlocked counties of Norway....

, Norway

Norway

Norway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic unitary constitutional monarchy whose territory comprises the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Jan Mayen, and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard and Bouvet Island. Norway has a total area of and a population of about 4.9 million...

. It is one of the driest places in the country, with only 222 mm annual precipitation.

The railway station Hjerkinn Station

Hjerkinn Station

Hjerkinn Station is a railway station located at Hjerkinn in Dovre, Norway. The station is located on Dovrebanen and served by four daily express trains each direction to Oslo and Trondheim...

 is located on Dovrebanen, at 1017 metres above mean sea level. The highway E6

European route E6

European route E 6 is the designation for the main north-south road in Norway, and the west coast of Sweden, running from the southern tip of Sweden, at Trelleborg, into Norway and through almost all of the country north to Finnmark. The route ends close to the Norwegian border with Russia...

 also passes through the village. It is also served by a small airport. Until 1993 there was mining by Folldal Gruver. The Norwegian military

Norwegian Armed Forces

The Norwegian Armed Forces numbers about 23,000 personnel, including civilian employees. According to mobilisation plans , the strength during full mobilisation would be approximately 83,000 combatant personnel. Norway has mandatory military service for men and voluntary service for women...

 has a camp at Hjerkinn.

The name

The Old Norse

Old Norse

Old Norse is a North Germanic language that was spoken by inhabitants of Scandinavia and inhabitants of their overseas settlements during the Viking Age, until about 1300....

 form of the name was Hjarðkinn. The first element is probably the stem form

Word stem

In linguistics, a stem is a part of a word. The term is used with slightly different meanings.In one usage, a stem is a form to which affixes can be attached. Thus, in this usage, the English word friendships contains the stem friend, to which the derivational suffix -ship is attached to form a new...

 of hjǫrðr m 'herd, flock of cattle or sheep', the last element is kinn n 'steep mountainside'. The village of Hjerkinn is lying beneath steep mountainsides, and since this place was an important crossroads with roads to Oppdal

Oppdal

is a village and municipality in Sør-Trøndelag county, Norway. It is part of the Dovre region. The administrative centre of the municipality is the village of Oppdal. Other villages in the municipality include Lønset, Vognillan, Fagerhaug, and Holan...

 and Folldal

Folldal

Folldal is a municipality in Hedmark county, Norway. It is part of the traditional region of Dovre. The administrative centre of the municipality is the village of Folldal. The new municipality of Folldal was separated from Alvdal in 1914.-Name:...

herds were often driven over here.