Kärdla

Kärdla is the only town on the island of Hiiumaa in Estonia, and the capital of Hiiu County and the administrative centre of Hiiumaa Parish. It lies on the northeastern coast of the island beside Tareste Bay, in a lowland valley crossed by several small rivers, and the Swedish name Kärrdal means marsh valley. To the southeast of the town is the 455 million year old Kärdla meteorite crater. The settlement was first mentioned in 1564 as a village inhabited by Swedes, and its growth was shaped by a cloth factory founded in 1830 and a port built in 1849, both destroyed in the Second World War. Kärdla became a borough in 1920 and a town in 1938, and lost its separate municipal status in 2013 when it merged with Kõrgessaare Parish to form Hiiumaa Parish. It is reached from the mainland by ferry from Rohuküla to Heltermaa and has a small airport with flights to Tallinn.