is a town in the municipality

Municipalities of Norway

Norway is divided into 19 administrative regions, called counties , and 430 municipalities...

 of Sel

Sel

Sel is a municipality in Oppland county, Norway. It is part of the traditional region of Gudbrandsdal. The administrative centre of the municipality is the town of Otta....

 in the county

Counties of Norway

Norway is divided into 19 administrative regions, called counties . The counties form the primary first-level subdivisions of Norway and are further divided into 430 municipalities...

 of 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....

 in 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 has about 2,750 inhabitants. The Otta river joins the Gudbrandsdalslågen

Gudbrandsdalslågen

The Gudbrandsdalslågen river flows through the Gudbrandsdal of Norway.The Gudbrandsdalslågen begins in the lake Lesjaskogsvatnet , which lies in Lesja municipality in Oppland. Lesjavatn is the only lake in Norway which has two outlets; they flow into two of Norway’s more famous rivers...

 river at Otta. Next to Otta lies the massive Rondane, which became the first national park in Norway in 1962, and which has several mountains over 2,000 metres. Otta is also an important link on the Dovre Line, since Otta Station is the only station in the vally where every single passing passenger train stops.
Otta also has two shopping malls, a bakery and a woodmill, being one of the largest ones in Norway and a hospital. There are also elementary schools, and further education can be given to teenagers at ages 16–18 at Otta Vidaregående Skule.

For tourists, it is possible to stop and fill gas in Otta. Otta also has the local "Take-Out", which is used by rafters and kajakers to exit the Otta and Sjoa river, as they meet in Otta. The water from the glacier of the Otta river, and the water from the Sjoa river meet in Otta, and form the Gudbrandsdalslågen.

In 1612, it was the site of the Battle of Kringen

Battle of Kringen

The Battle of Kringen was a battle perpetrated by a Norwegian peasant militia against Scottish mercenary soldiers who were on their way to enlist in the Swedish army for the Kalmar War....

.