Lærdal is a municipality in the southeastern part of Sogn og Fjordane county, Norway. It is located on the south side of the Sognefjorden in the traditional district of Sogn. The administrative center of the municipality is the village of Lærdalsøyri. The area of the municipality is 1,342 square kilometres (518 sq mi), half of it consists of mountain areas, the rest is valleys. The old Filefjell Kongevegen road passes through Lærdal on its way to Valdres and later to Oslo.

The Lærdal river valley is long, running from Hemsedal (Høgeloft mountain) and the Filefjell mountains in the east to the Sognefjorden in the west. About 1,200 of the 2,200 inhabitants live in the main village of Lærdalsøyri; the rest in the small villages Borgund, Ljøsne, Tønjum, Erdal, Vindedalen, Frønningen, and Strendene. The Old Lærdalsøyri village has 161 protected buildings. Some of the houses there date back to the mid-18th century. On the night of 18–19 January 2014, a major fire destroyed at least 30 buildings.

Lærdal was established as a municipality on 1 January 1838 (see formannskapsdistrikt). In the 19th century, the name was sometimes spelled Leerdahl or Leirdal. The municipality of 1838 was created to be identical to the Lærdal parish (prestegjeld) that included the sub-parishes (sokn) of Borgund, Tønjum, Hauge, and Årdal. In 1863, the northern sub-parish of Årdal (population: 1,791) was separated from Lærdal to form a separate municipality. In 1864, the eastern sub-parish of Borgund (population: 963) was separated from Lærdal to form its own municipality. This left Lærdal with 2,777 residents.

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