Bodin is a parish and former municipality in Nordland county, Norway. It was a large municipality encompassing all of the mainland area around the town of Bodø, part of the land on the southern shore of the Saltfjorden, and the islands of Helligvær, Landegode, Bliksvær, and Givær. It lies entirely inside the present-day municipality of Bodø.

The present-day parish of Bodin represents the mainland area immediately surrounding the town of Bodø and the western islands. The main church for the parish is the historic Bodin Church.

The municipality of Bodø landdistrikt was established as a municipality on 1 January 1838 (see formannskapsdistrikt). It included the rural areas surrounding the town of Bodø. In 1896, the name was changed to Bodin. On 1 July 1938, an area of Bodin (population: 559) was transferred to Bodø. On 1 January 1959, another area of Bodin (population: 1,303) was transferred to the town of Bodø. On 1 January 1963, an area of Skjerstad (population: 224) was transferred to Bodin.

Jean Bodin (1530–1596) was a French jurist and political philosopher, member of the Parlement of Paris and professor of law in Toulouse. He is best known for his theory of sovereignty; he was also an influential writer on demonology.

Bodin lived during the aftermath of the Protestant Reformation, and wrote against the background of religious conflict in France. He remained a nominal Catholic throughout his life, but was critical of papal authority over governments, favouring the strong central control of a national monarchy as an antidote to factional strife. Towards the end of his life he wrote, but did not publish, a dialogue between different religions, including representatives of Judaism, Islam and natural theology, in which all agreed to coexist in concord.

Bodin was successively a monk, academic, professional lawyer and political adviser. An excursion as a politician having proved a failure, he lived out his life as a provincial magistrate.

Bodin was born near Angers (perhaps the son of a master tailor), with modestly prosperous middle-class background. He received a decent education, apparently in the Carmelite monastery of Angers, where he became a novice monk. Some claims made about his early life remain obscure. There is some evidence of a visit to Geneva in 1547/48 in which he became involved in a heresy trial. The records of this episode, however, are murky and perhaps refer to another person.