The skjærgård is the chain of thousands of small rocky islands, skerries and reefs that fringes most of the Norwegian coast from Stavanger in the south-west to Kirkenes in the north-east. The word translates literally as skerry yard or skerry enclosure, capturing the way the outer chain of islands acts as a buffer between the open Atlantic and the fjord-and-coast landscape inside.
The geological basis is ancient. The skerries are the eroded remnants of a Precambrian gneiss bedrock that was exposed and shaped by repeated glaciations over the last two million years. Across most of the western and northern coast, the result is a continuous low coastal platform - the so-called strandflat - that is at its widest and most distinctive on the Helgeland coast. The strandflat sits at or just above sea level and contains thousands of named islands plus tens of thousands of unnamed reefs.
The functional importance of the skjærgård is enormous. The outer chain of islands breaks the open-Atlantic swell, so the inland coastal waters remain unusually calm even in serious weather. This is why the Norwegian coastal route (Kystriksveien) along the strandflat is rideable on a bicycle in conditions that would be unmanageable on the open coast. It is also why the small-boat traditions of the Norwegian coast - sailing, sea kayaking, working fishing in open boats - have flourished for over a thousand years.
For the visitor, the skjærgård is mostly experienced as the landscape on the seaward side of any coastal trip. From the deck of a small ferry, the outer islands appear as a long chain of low gray-green silhouettes against the open Atlantic. Sea-kayak travelers spend most of their time threading between the islands. Cyclists on the Helgeland and Vesterålen coastal routes have the skjærgård as the unbroken view to the west for days at a time. See The Helgeland coast by bicycle.