The national park covers 1,151 square kilometres (444 sq mi) and is part of the larger area Jotunheimen.

A "Royal Road" decree from the 15th century required that the residents of Lom must keep the mountain crossing passable to the middle of the Sognefjell, allowing folk from the north Gudbrandsdal access to their trading town of the period, Bergen.

O. Vinje at the western end of Lake Bygdin at his dear Eidsbugarden at today's outskirts of the national park where he had a private hut.

By Royal Decree in December 1980, a 1,145-square-kilometre (442 sq mi) national park was initially established in the heart of Jotunheimen.

In February 2020, Secrets of the Ice Program researchers discovered a 1,500-year-old Viking arrowhead dating back to the Germanic Iron Age and locked in a glacier in southern Norway caused by the climate change in the Jotunheimen Mountains.

The arrowhead made of iron was revealed with its cracked wooden shaft and a feather, is 17 cm long and weighs just 28 grams.

A small exception, however, is a blind road in the Veodalen to Glitterheim, whose head is inside the national park area near the Glittertind.