Hvalstad is a village and a small part of the Municipality Asker

Asker

Asker is a municipality in Akershus county, Norway. It is part of the Viken traditional region. The administrative centre of the municipality is the village of Asker. The municipality is a suburb of Oslo, the national capital...

. Hvalstad has slightly more than 2000 inhabitants, a number that has doubled since the seventies. Hvalstad is located 20 kilometres from the centre of Oslo

Oslo

Oslo is a municipality, as well as the capital and most populous city in Norway. As a municipality , it was established on 1 January 1838. Founded around 1048 by King Harald III of Norway, the city was largely destroyed by fire in 1624. The city was moved under the reign of Denmark–Norway's King...

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Hvalstad Station is on Drammensbanen (the Oslo-Drammen Railway line) opened on October 7, 1872.

Asker Museum

Asker Museum is located in Hvalstad. The Museum primarily shows the audience art of many kinds. It's a source to knowledge, understanding and inspiration. This Museum was the home of Otto

Otto Valstad

Otto Valstad was a Norwegian painter, book illustrator and children's writer. He was born in Asker, and was married to Tilla Valstad. Their home in Hvalstad was a cultural centre, and has later been made into a museum, a part of Asker Museum...

 and Tilla Valstad

Tilla Valstad

Mathilde Georgine "Tilla" Valstad was a Norwegian teacher, novelist and journalist. She was born in Tønsberg as the daughter of ship owner Johan Henrik Christiansen and Mathilde Georgine Hvistendahl, and was married to painter and teacher Otto Valstad in 1893. Their home in Hvalstad was a cultural...

. They are related to the family that Hvalstad got its name from. When they died at the of the forties they gave their properties including their house to the Municipality of Asker and in this way it became a museum.

Hvalstad school

The school in Hvalstad is relatively new; its construction was finished in 1999. Hvalstad School has a basket court and a gravel football pitch.

Notable residents

Hvalstad was the adult home of Norwegian author Johan Bojer

Johan Bojer

Johan Bojer was a popular Norwegian novelist and dramatist. He principally wrote about the lives of the poor farmers and fishermen, both in his native Norway and among the Norwegian immigrants in the United States.-Biography:...

, born Johan Christoffer Hansen in Orkanger in 1872, Sør-Trøndelag, and raised in Rissa, Sør-Trøndelag. He published many novels in Norwegian and English, the most popular being Den siste viking (1921, English translation, The Last of the Vikings, 1923). Bojer died in 1959 in Oppdal while returning by train to Hvalstad from a visit to Rissa.