Kristiansand

Kristiansand is a seaside resort city and municipality in Agder county, Norway. The city is the fifth-largest and the municipality the sixth-largest in Norway, with a population of around 112,000 as of January 2020, following the incorporation of the municipalities of Søgne and Songdalen into the greater Kristiansand municipality. In addition to the city itself, Statistics Norway counts four other densely populated areas in the municipality: Skålevik in Flekkerøy with a population of 3,526 in the Vågsbygd borough, Strai with a population of 1,636 in the Grim borough, Justvik with a population of 1,803 in the Lund borough, and Tveit with a population of 1,396 () in the Oddernes borough. Kristiansand is divided into five boroughs: Grim, which is located northwest in Kristiansand with a population of 15,000; Kvadraturen, which is the centre and downtown Kristiansand with a population of 5,200; Lund, the second largest borough; Søgne, with a population of around 12,000 and incorporated into the municipality of Kristiansand as of January 2020; Oddernes, a borough located in the west; and Vågsbygd, the largest borough with a population of 36,000, located in the southwest.

Kristiansand is connected by four main roads: European Route E18 from Oslo, Aust-Agder and covers the eastern part of Kristiansand; European route E39 from Stavanger, Flekkefjord and the coast towns and villages in Vest-Agder; Norwegian National Road 9 from Evje, Setesdal and Grim; and Norwegian National Road 41 from Telemark, northern Aust-Agder, Birkeland, Tveit and the airport Kristiansand Airport, Kjevik. Varodd Bridge is a large bridge and a part of E18, which stretches over Topdalsfjorden.

Tourism is important in Kristiansand, and the summer season is the most popular for tourists. Kristiansand Zoo and Amusement park is the largest zoo in Norway. It receives over 900,000 visitors every year. Markens Street is the main pedestrian street in downtown Kristiansand. Bystranda is a city beach located in Kvadraturen; Hamresanden beach is the longest beach in Kristiansand. Hamresanden Camping is a popular family camp during the summer season. The city hosts a free weekly concert in downtown Kristiansand in the summertime. Outside the city is the industrial park Sørlandsparken, which includes Sørlandssenteret, Norway's largest mall.

Name

The city is named after the Dano-Norwegian King King Christian IV, who founded it on 5 July 1641. The second part of the city's name, ''sand'', refers to the sandy headland the city was built on (see also Lillesand).

The name was often written ''Christianssand'' until 1877, although the map of the mapmaker Pontoppidan from 1785 spelled the name ''Christiansand'' (with a single 's'). That year, an official spelling reform aimed at making city names "more Norwegian" changed it to ''Kristianssand''. Kristiansund and Kristiania, now Oslo, had their spellings changed under the same reform. Despite that, a number of businesses and associations retain the "Ch" spelling. The name was again changed to its present form, ''Kristiansand'' (single "s"), in 1889.

In 2012, the city's mayor, Arvid Grundekjøn, proposed that the city be renamed Christianssand, arguing that "Kristiansand" is grammatically meaningless and that Christianssand stands for tradition. This proposal was not well received by the locals and the mayor has not pushed this further.

History

Prehistory and early history

The Kristiansand area has been inhabited since prehistoric times. In 1996, the well-preserved skeleton of a woman dating to approximately 6500 BC was discovered in Søgne in western Kristiansand. This demonstrates very early habitation of the archipelago. Grauthelleren (''Grathelleren''), located on Fidjane, is believed to be a Stone Age settlement. The first discovery in Norway of a Sarup enclosure (a Neolithic form of ritual enclosure first identified at Sarup on the Danish island of Funen) was made in 2010 at Hamresanden and dates to c. 3400 BC. Archaeological excavations to the east of Oddernes Church have uncovered rural settlements that existed during the centuries immediately before and after the start of the common era. Together with a corresponding discovery in Rogaland, these settlements are unique in the Norwegian context; isolated farms, rather than villages, were the norm in ancient Norway. Other discoveries in grave mounds around the church, in the Lund section of the city, indicate habitation beginning c. 400 AD, and 25 cooking pits that were found immediately outside the church wall in 1907 are probably even older. One of the largest pre-Christian burial grounds in South Norway was formerly located to the south and west of the church. A royal centre is thought to have existed at Oddernes before 800, and the church was built around 1040.

Before the stone church was built, one or perhaps two wooden post churches are believed to have stood on the same spot. A few years ago, excavations were carried out under and around the runestone when it was moved to the church porch; the grave finds indicated that the churchyard must already have been unusually large in the High Middle Ages. This means that the area must have had a large population before it was reduced by the Black Death.

In the 14th and 15th centuries, there was already a busy port and a small village on the Otra at the lowest point of today's Lund neighbourhood (Lahelle). Another important element in the development of Kristiansand was the harbor on the island of Flekkerøy, which was the most important on the Skagerrak beginning in the 16th century and was first fortified under King Christian III in 1555. In 1635, King Christian IV ordered his feudal seigneur, Palle Rosenkrantz, to move from Nedenes and build a royal palace on the island.

Foundation to 1900

Christian IV (renowned for having founded many towns) visited the location in 1630 and 1635, and on 5 July 1641 formally founded the town of ''Christianssand'' on the "sand" on the opposite bank of the Torridalselva (Otra). The town was laid out in Renaissance style on a grid plan (the central section now known as ''Kvadraturen'' = The Quarters), and merchants throughout Agder were commanded to move to the new town. In return, they were to receive a variety of trading privileges and a ten-year tax exemption.

In 1666, Christianssand became a garrison town and was heavily fortified. In 1682, King Christian V decided to relocate the bishopric there from Stavanger. Hence, the young city became the main city of the Christiansand Stift.

Christianssand experienced its first fire in 1734, which was devastating to the city. Later in the 18th century, after the American Revolutionary War, the town's shipbuilders experienced a boom that lasted until the Napoleonic Wars, when the continental blockade and naval warfare struck a severe blow to trade. Denmark–Norway supported France in the Wars and was therefore subjected to relentless attack by Britain, as recounted in Ibsen's '' Terje Vigen''. Only in the 1830s did the economy begin to recover, and the growth in the Norwegian shipping industry was important for Christianssand. It was the only part of Norway where oak trees flourished, a major resource for the shipbuilding industry. Large numbers of lobsters were taken off the coast and sent to the London market by the mid 19th century. The population was about 12,000 by 1848.

The City of Kristiansand had a quarantine station for maritime traffic and hospital at Odderøy Island for cholera patients that opened in 1804. The city had far fewer deaths than the surrounding area, largely attributable to the quarantine station and the hospital. For example, during the period of 1833–1866, Drammen had 544 cholera patients, of which 336 died. During this same period, Kristiansand only experienced 15 deaths from cholera.

Another important development during the 19th century was the foundation in 1881 of '' Sindssygeasyl'', the second central psychiatric institution in Norway (after Gaustad). The psychiatric hospital drew highly specialized doctors to the city and also provided many jobs for women.

The most recent major fire, in 1892, left half the original section of the city in ashes. It burned buildings as far as the cathedral, which had been rebuilt in brick after a previous fire in 1880.

1900 onward

With the development of hydropower in southern Norway, the city gradually developed an industrial base, particularly with the establishment in 1910 of the nickel refinery Kristiansands Nikkelraffineringsverk AS (later Falconbridge Nikkelverk, now Glencore Nikkelverk). From an economic perspective, the First World War was a good time for Kristiansand, as a neutral shipping city. The crises that followed with the gold standard politics of the 1920s and the world economic crisis of the 1930s were also deeply felt in a trading city like Kristiansand.

The labour movement had important pioneers in the city, and Leon Trotsky spent about a year of his exile in the archipelago offshore from Kristiansand. Arnulf Øverland took him from Randesund to Ny-Hellesund in Søgne in 1936. In the interwar period Kristiansand was a centre for intellectuals, especially after the architect Thilo Schoder settled there in 1932.

Kristiansand was attacked by German naval forces and the Luftwaffe during the Operation Weserübung on 9 April 1940. The naval forces met fierce resistance from Norwegian coastal artillery at Odderøya. Bombs and grenades also hit the downtown and the 70 meter high church tower of the Kristiansand Cathedral was hit by accident. The third attack attempt on the city succeeded because a signal flag was confused with a French national flag and the misunderstanding was not discovered until it was too late. The city was occupied by a force of 800 men.

Post-war construction included further development of the Lund section, and in the 1960s and 1970s Vågsbygd to the west was developed into a section with 20,000 inhabitants. In the 1980s, industry and business in the city declined, in part because of the 1986 fire at the Hotel Caledonien. But beginning in the second half of the 1990s, business increased in momentum with the development of enterprises for marine and offshore equipment, security technology and drilling.

The older municipal archives for Kristiansand (and the former municipalities) are currently held at the Inter-Municipal Archives in Vest-Agder (IKAVA). This includes documents concerning, for example, local councils, chairmanships, poor boards, school boards and archives including among other things personal documents in the form of client records, tax records, and also school records.

On 1 January 2020, the three neighbouring municipalities of Kristiansand, Songdalen, and Søgne were merged to form one large municipality called ''Kristiansand''.

Coat-of-arms

The arms of Kristiansand were granted on 8 December 1909 and are based on the oldest seal of the city, dating from 1643. In 1643 King Christian IV granted the young town the right to use a seal with the Norwegian lion and the royal crown. The crown indicates that the city was founded by the king. The other major element in the arms is a tree. As the species of tree is not specified, there are several known versions with differently shaped trees. A second seal, from 1658, shows a tree with leaves and what look like pine cones. On the base of the crown are the letters R. F. P., standing for ''Regna Firma Pietas'', "Piety strengthens the realm"; this was Christian IV's motto. Around the seal of the city is its motto, ''Cavsa Triumphat Tandem Bona'', "A good cause prevails in the end".

Geography

Kristiansand is strategically located on the Skagerrak, and until the opening of the Kiel Canal between the North Sea and the Baltic was very important militarily and geopolitically. This meant that for centuries it served as a military stronghold, first as Harald Fairhair's royal residence, then as a Danish-Norwegian fortress, and later as a garrison town. Kristiansand is a gateway to and from the continent, with ferry service to Denmark and a terminus of the railway line along the southern edge of South Norway.Geologically, this part of Agder is part of the Swedo-Norwegian Base Mountain Shield, the southwestern section of the Baltic Shield, and consists of two main geological formations of Proterozoic rocks that were formed in the Gothic and later Swedo-Norwegian orogenies, with significant metamorphism during the latter. There is a substrate of 1,600–1,450 million-year-old slate, quartzite, marble and amphibolite with some hornblende gneiss, and overlaid on this acidic surface structures of both granite and granodiorite (in general 1,250–1,000 million years old, in some places 1,550–1,480 million years old). The ''Bamblefelt'' geological area starts to the east of the municipality and extends to Grenland.

The last Swedo-Norwegian formations are evident in large formations of granite. There are also incidences of gabbro and diorite, less commonly eclogite. The Caledonian orogeny did not affect this area. Faults run southwest–northeast. In ancient times there was a volcano off Flekkeroy, which left deposits of volcanic rock just north of central Kristiansand, on the site of the estate of , now occupied by the Hospital of Southern Norway.

Near the city, there are deep woods. In Baneheia and at the former coastal artillery fortress on Odderøya, there are lighted ski trails and walking paths specially prepared for wheelchair users.

Two major rivers, the Otra and the Tovdalselva, flow into the Skagerrak at Kristiansand.

Climate

Kristiansand has a temperate oceanic climate (Köppen: ''Cfb'') in the 1991-2020 period. The coastal parts of the Skagerrak coast, which includes Kristiansand, is the sunniest part of Norway. Snow generally occurs in late December and in January and February; it may be heavy (the snow record at Kjevik airport is ) but rarely stays long on the coast; see Climate of Norway. Due to warming in the more recent decades, snow often melts after a few days.
In the summer most locals go to the Fiskebrygga, the archipelago opposite the city, and Hamresanden Beach, which is located about 10 minutes from the city centre near Kjevik airport. People from Denmark, Sweden, Germany, the UK and other European countries also visit this beach in the summer during their travels.

The all-time high at Kristiansand airport was recorded August 1975. The all-time low at the airport was recorded January 1982. The temperature seldom reaches , but most days in July reaches or more. The warmest month ever was July 1901 with mean at an earlier weather station (''Kristiansand S - Eg''). The warmest month at the airport was July 2018 with 24-hr average and average daily high . July 2018 was also the sunniest month on record with 422 sunhours, and the year 2018 recorded 2126 sunhours - despite December recording just 1 sunhr as cloudiest month on record in Kristiansand. The cloudiest July recorded 156 sunhours (2007). Kristiansand has the national record for the sunniest February (153 sunhrs in 1986), sunniest April (323 hrs in 2021), sunniest August (343 hrs in 1995) and sunniest September (241 hrs in 1959).
The wettest month on record was October 1976 with 560 mm precipitation, and the driest was April 1974 with no precipitation at all.

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Popular beaches

* Bystranda is a beach located at the city centre. It is east on Kvadraturen and at Tangen. Nearby the beach is the swimming complex Aquarama with both outdoor and indoor pools. Aquarama is next door to the " Scandic Hotel Bystranda", which is Southern Norway's largest hotel. Some of Kristiansand's most expensive apartments are located east of the beach and near to Tangen. Some of Bystranda's facilities are beach volleyball, playgrounds, skateparks, stairs to the water at deeper ground and its easy design for handicapped people and children. In the middle of the bay, there is a sculpture in the water. Palmesus is a yearly beach festival held on Bystranda, it is Scandinavia's largest beach festival.
*Hamresanden is located between Hånes and the airport Kristiansand Airport, Kjevik. It is long which makes it the longest beach in Kristiansand. There are three camping places and an apartment hotel at the beach. The name comes from the nearby subpart Hamre.
*Sømstranda is a nudist beach in Kristiansand located at Søm.

Boroughs

Parts

Kristiansand is partitioned into 18 parts and 217 subparts. Kristiansand is also divided into 5 boroughs.

Kvadraturen is the city center of Kristiansand. The area belonged to the farms and Grim, and was a sandy plain covered with forest, and was called Sanden or Grimsmoen. Settlements were before the city was founded focused on loading and dumps at Lund, along Otra or Torridalselven and along Topdalsfjorden by Odderøya and Flekkeroy port.
Christian IV's town plan outlined the city center with 56 rectangular squares with five long blocks and eight cross streets. It was the squares along the Otra and east and west harbor, which was built first.
Today Kvadraturen is a part of Kvadraturen/, which has (as of 1 January 2005) 5510 inhabitants. The area Posebyen in Kvadraturen is Northern Europe's longest continuous wooden buildings.
In the parts are among others Kristiansand Cathedral, Kristiansand City Hall, Wergeland Park, and the terminal for ferries to Hirtshals and Kristiansand Station is located in the parts western corner.
Vågsbygd has considerable industry, who has survived major changes. The largest employer is all the same Elkem Solar producing super clean Silicon for solar cells, which are located in premises that Elkem previous Ferrosilicon factory Fiskå Verk. On Andøya it established a significant and advanced mechanical industry which produces offshore and marine cranes and other marine equipment in Andøya Industrial Park. Amfi Vågsbygd is a major shopping center in Vågsbygd. Outside of Andøya in Vågsbygd is Bredalsholmen Shipyard and Preservation Centre, a Centre for protection of vessels at the former Bredalsholmen yard. Bredalsholmen Shipyard and Preservation Centre is a national hub for maintenance of museum ships and cherish worthy coastal culture, and a drydock with considerable capacity.

Lund is the second largest borough in Kristiansand with a population of 9,000 inhabitants in 2012. 14 June 1921 was the first 2.75 km² of Lund transferred to Kristiansand and 1 January 1965 was also the rest of Lund part of Kristiansand in the municipal amalgamation. In Lund, there are traces of humans dating back to the early Iron Age, the Viking Age until the early Middle Ages various locations. There has been a settlement here since the Stone Age. During the Viking Age there was a great man's farm here. A Runestone at Oddernes church provides a connection to this farm. A large field with burial mounds formerly existed south and west of the church, and may also be associated with this farm. In 1492 robbers from the sea came and attacked Lund. This is mentioned in two letters located in the National Archives. The letters describe the attack that took place with a lot of violence against both women and men and that on both sides suffered casualties. No one know who the robbers were, but their centurion was named Per Syvertsen. The name suggests that he and his crew came from Norway or Denmark.

Indre and Ytre Randesund is located between Kvåsefjorden in Høvåg and the Topdalsfjord in Oddernes. Several small islands are situated alongside the cost of Randesund, among them Randøya and Herøya, both popular with summer tourists. The municipality (originally the parish) is named after the island, Randøen (now known as Randøya). The first part of the name is rand (Old Norse: rǫnd) which means "boundary" or "edge" and the last part of the name is sund which means "strait". The name was previously spelled Randøsund.

Tveit is a village and a former municipality in Vest-Agder county. It is located in the present-day municipality of Kristiansand. Tveit is home to Kristiansand Airport, Kjevik. Tveit is located along the lower part of the Tovdalselva river, known as Topdalselva from the border with Aust-Agder. The population of Tveit is approximately 2,900 (2014).

Subparts

Some of the most populous basic unions in the following boroughs:

Søgne

Søgne was a former municipality, located west of Kristiansand. The municipality was merged into a large municipality with the former municipality of Songdalen and the city of Kristiansand on January 1, 2020.

Songdalen

Songdalen was a former municipality, located northwest of Kristiansand. The municipality was merged into a large municipality with the former municipality of Søgne and the city of Kristiansand on January 1, 2020.

Notable streets

*Dronningens gate (Queens street) is a street that has its run from Havnegata Vestre harbor to Lund Bridge and is 980 meters long. 86 properties are matrikulert to the street. The street had in the 1700s the name Sand Alley.
*Elvegata (River street) has its run from Østre Strandgate to Tordenskjolds gate. It has a mix of newer business and residential buildings schools and nursing homes as well as a large percentage of older residential buildings in wood and masonry. On the south side of Østre Strandgate called extension of Elvegata for Tangen. 70 meters of the street, in the quarter between Dronningens gate and Tollbodgata is designated county road 26.
*Festningsgata is a street in Kvadraturen. The name is connected with Christiansholm Fortress from 1672 located in the street race extension towards the east harbor. The street stretches from Østre Strandgate to Tordenskjoldsgate and originally had the name Northern gate. The extension of the street during north of Tordenskjolds street is named Stener Heyerdahl street. The park south of Tordenskjolds street called Stener Heyerdahl park. This street stump and Festningsgata from Tordenskjolds street to Dronningens gate is part of the county road 28. From Vestre Strandgata to Tollbodgata buildings are listed by the walled green was introduced immediately after the fire in 1892 and forward.
*Henrik Wergelands gate is a street in Kvadraturen in Kristiansand. The street has its run from Vestre Strandgate to Elvegata. 118 properties are matrikulert to the street. It had previously named Consumer Julia Street. The street is named in honor of Norwegian poet Henrik Wergeland. In 1808 he had his early childhood in the town until he at nine moved with her family to Eidsvold.
*Tollbodgata (Tollbooth street) has its run from Senior wharf at Vestre port to Elvegata by Otra and is identical with Route 27 in Vest-Agder. 77 properties are matrikulert to the street. The street has previously had the name Sten Alley. Tolbooth.
*Vestre Strandgate (Western Beach Street) is a street that has its run from Gravane to roundabout at Gartnerløkka where it meets E18 and continue to run in Rv9 ( Setesdalsveien). It is part of the county road 471 from the roundabout at Gartnerløkka the junction with Dronnings gata. From Rådhusgata to Gravane has two parallel paths, an extension of Fv471 and a container that separates the harbor from including Tolbooth. The street has a number of key meeting places and city functions in terms of Radisson Hotel, Agder Theater, cinema, Clarion Hotel, Kristiansand Bus Terminal and Kristiansand Station. The street is characterized by restaurants, pubs and eating places, a number of shops and offices and a few apartments.

Government

All municipalities in Norway, including Kristiansand, are responsible for primary education (through 10th grade), outpatient health services, senior citizen services, unemployment and other social services, zoning, economic development, and municipal roads. The municipality is governed by a municipal council of elected representatives, which in turn elects a mayor. Kristiansand has no local parliamentary government, but is managed by the municipal council and an executive committee. The mayor is the spokesman for the city, head of the council and leader of the executive committee. In Kristiansand the mayor has represented the center-right parties since the late 1940s. The municipality falls under the Kristiansand District Court and the Agder Court of Appeal.

Municipal council

The municipal council of Kristiansand is made up of 71 representatives that are elected to four year terms. The party breakdown of the council is as follows:

Demographics

Kristiansand has the third largest Vietnamese community in Norway.

Religion

Christianity

Kristiansand Cathedral is the largest church in Kristiansand. It is located in Kvadraturen with the town hall and Wergelandsparken. The church was built in 1885 and have the capacity of 1500 people. The church is the seat of the Bishop of Agder and Telemark in the Church of Norway. Grim Church was built in 1969 and has a capacity of 750 people. Vågsbygd Church is the church of Vågsbygd, it is located in the centrum of Vågsbygd and was built in 1967 and has a capacity of 650. Lund Church was built in 1987 and has a capacity of 600 people. Søm Church was built in 2004 and has a capacity of 600. The church was Kristiansand municipality 1000 year building and is the largest church in Oddernes. The windows of Søm Church was designed by Kjell Nupen.

There are also churches located at Flekkerøy, Hellemyr, Hånes, Justvik, Oddemarka ( Oddernes), Randesund, Strai ( Torridal), Tveit and Voie. There are chapeaus all over the city. Christianity are strongest in Flekkerøy and Søm, even though Southern Norway is called the Norwegian Bible belt, Christianity doesn't play a big part in the rest of the city.

There is a Catholic church in Kvadraturen, St. Ansgar's Church. At Slettheia, there is a Latter-day Saint church and at Tinnheia, there is an Orthodox church.

The Church of Norway has twelve parishes (''sokn'') within the municipality of Kristiansand. It is part of the Kristiansand arch-deanery in the Diocese of Agder og Telemark.

Buddhism

There is a Buddhist centre in Vågsbygd with Ternevig. There is also a Buddhist meditation centre located in the neighbouring municipality Songdalen.

Islam

There is a mosque in Kvadraturen.

Economy

Christianssands Bryggeri is a producer of beer and soft drinks with a long history in the city. The brewery was established in 1859, and all products are made with spring water from the company's own spring, called ''Christian IVs kilde'' (Christian IV's spring).

Hennig-Olsen is an ice cream factory with headquarters and manufacturing facilities in Kristiansand. The factory opened in 1960, but the Hennig-Olsen family has produced ice cream in Kristiansand since 1924, when Sven Hennig-Olsen started doing so in the back of his tobacco kiosk.

Glencore Nikkelverk (nickel factory) was founded in 1910 as Kristiansand Nikkelraffineringsverk A/S. The company is owned by the Anglo-Swiss company Glencore and has about 500 employees.

The Korsvik industrial area on the east side of the Kristiansandsfjord is home to companies working on drilling technology, cranes, winches and other equipment for the worldwide petroleum industry, among them National Oilwell Varco and Aker MH.
Elkem, owned by China National Bluestar since 2011, operated a refining plant for ferrosilicon and microsilica at Fiskå in Vågsbygd for many years and was replaced in the beginning of the 20th century by Elkem Solar which produces polycrystalline silicon for wafers used in the solar cell