Stad or Stadlandet is a peninsula

Headland

A headland is a point of land, usually high and often with a sheer drop, that extends out into a body of water.Headland can also refer to:*Headlands and bays*headLand, an Australian television series...

 in the municipality of Selje

Selje

Selje is a municipality in the county of Sogn og Fjordane, Norway. It is located in the traditional district of Nordfjord. The village of Selje is the administrative center of Selje municipality...

 in Sogn og Fjordane

Sogn og Fjordane

is a county in Norway, bordering Møre og Romsdal, Oppland, Buskerud, and Hordaland. The county administration is in the town of Hermansverk in Leikanger municipality while the largest town is Førde....

 county, 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...

.

The name is sometimes also written as Stadt, Statt or Stadlandet–not to be confused with the similar German

German language

German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....

 word Stadt. The d in Stad is pronounced in Norwegian

Norwegian language

Norwegian is a North Germanic language spoken primarily in Norway, where it is the official language. Together with Swedish and Danish, Norwegian forms a continuum of more or less mutually intelligible local and regional variants .These Scandinavian languages together with the Faroese language...

 as a t. The Stad peninsula has a very harsh, windy climate

Climate

Climate encompasses the statistics of temperature, humidity, atmospheric pressure, wind, rainfall, atmospheric particle count and other meteorological elemental measurements in a given region over long periods...

. The highest wind speed in the country is often recorded at this promontory. Located between Stavanger

Stavanger

Stavanger is a city and municipality in the county of Rogaland, Norway.Stavanger municipality has a population of 126,469. There are 197,852 people living in the Stavanger conurbation, making Stavanger the fourth largest city, but the third largest urban area, in Norway...

 and Ålesund

Ålesund

is a town and municipality in Møre og Romsdal county, Norway. It is part of the traditional district of Sunnmøre, and the center of the Ålesund Region. It is a sea port, and is noted for its unique concentration of Art Nouveau architecture....

 in Møre og Romsdal

Møre og Romsdal

is a county in the northernmost part of Western Norway. It borders the counties of Sør-Trøndelag, Oppland and Sogn og Fjordane. The county administration is located in Molde, while Ålesund is the largest city.-The name:...

 county, this is the only peninsula on the mainland that goes out into open sea. Most of the rest of the ship route from Stavanger to Ålesund is protected by islands. The Svinøy lighthouse

Svinøy fyrstasjon

Svinøy fyr is a fully automated lighthouse situated on the island of Svinøy in the sea off the Stad peninsula. It is located in the municipality of Herøy in Møre og Romsdal county, on the western coast of Norway. The island lies within sight of the mainland and it is from the nearest island. The...

 is located 13 kilometres (8.1 mi) north of the peninsula on a small island in the Norwegian Sea.

The peninsula is considered the dividing point between the Norwegian Sea

Norwegian Sea

The Norwegian Sea is a marginal sea in the North Atlantic Ocean, northwest of Norway. It is located between the North Sea and the Greenland Sea and adjoins the North Atlantic Ocean to the west and the Barents Sea to the northeast. In the southwest, it is separated from the Atlantic Ocean by a...

 to the north and the North Sea

North Sea

In the southwest, beyond the Straits of Dover, the North Sea becomes the English Channel connecting to the Atlantic Ocean. In the east, it connects to the Baltic Sea via the Skagerrak and Kattegat, narrow straits that separate Denmark from Norway and Sweden respectively...

 to the south. The peninsula is a 500 metres (1,640.4 ft) high mountain plateau

Plateau

In geology and earth science, a plateau , also called a high plain or tableland, is an area of highland, usually consisting of relatively flat terrain. A highly eroded plateau is called a dissected plateau...

 topped by the 645 metres (2,116.1 ft) tall Tarvaldsegga peak. There are several lower valley on the peninsula, but at the western end, the plateau plunges into the sea in a 497 metres (1,630.6 ft) tall cliff at Kjerringa.

Because of the harsh climate, the peninsula can be an obstacle for ship transport along the coast of Norway. It is one of the main obstacles preventing a fast-boat passenger route from Bergen

Bergen

Bergen is the second largest city in Norway with a population of as of , . Bergen is the administrative centre of Hordaland county. Greater Bergen or Bergen Metropolitan Area as defined by Statistics Norway, has a population of as of , ....

 to Ålesund. Current transportation Bergen-Ålesund is by air over Oslo, or by bus (9 hours) or Hurtigruten

Hurtigruten

Hurtigruten or Hurtigruta is a Norwegian passenger and freight line with daily sailings along Norway's western and northern coast. Sometimes referred to in English as Norwegian Coastal Express, Hurtigruten ships sail almost the entire length of the country, completing the roundtrip journey in 11...

 boats (13 hours).

Already in the 1870s there were plans for the construction of a ship's tunnel. A pilot project was developed in 1985, and the development company founded the same year. Plans are currently well underway to build the Stad Ship Tunnel

Stad Ship Tunnel

The Stad Ship Tunnel is a proposed canal and tunnel which would bypass the Stad peninsula in Selje, Norway. The peninsula is one of the most exposed areas on the coast, without outlying islands. The section has traditionally been one of the most dangerous along the coast of Norway. Two tunnel...

 at the narrowest point connecting the Moldefjorden to the Kjødspollen with capacity to take large ships such as the Hurtigruten

Hurtigruten

Hurtigruten or Hurtigruta is a Norwegian passenger and freight line with daily sailings along Norway's western and northern coast. Sometimes referred to in English as Norwegian Coastal Express, Hurtigruten ships sail almost the entire length of the country, completing the roundtrip journey in 11...

vessels.