Kongsvinger () is a

town A town is a human settlement. Towns are generally larger than villages and smaller than cities, though the criteria to distinguish between them vary considerably in different parts of the world. Origin and use The word "town" shares an ori ...

Kongsvinger Municipality Kongsvinger () is a municipality in Innlandet county, Norway. It is located in the traditional district of Glåmdal. The administrative centre of the municipality is the town of Kongsvinger. Other settlements in the municipality include Austm ...

Innlandet Innlandet is a county in Norway. It was created on 1 January 2020 with the merger of the old counties of Oppland and Hedmark (the municipalities of Jevnaker and Lunner were transferred to the neighboring county of Viken on the same date). The ...

county,

Norway Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe, the mainland territory of which comprises the western and northernmost portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and t ...

. The town is the

administrative centre An administrative center is a seat of regional administration or local government, or a county town, or the place where the central administration of a commune is located. In countries with French as administrative language (such as Belgium, Lu ...

of the municipality. It is located along the river

Glomma The Glomma, or Glåma, is Norway's longest and most voluminous river. With a total length of , it has a drainage basin that covers fully 13% of Norway's surface area, all in the southern part of the country. Geography At its fullest length, the ...

, about northeast of the city of

Oslo Oslo ( , , or ; sma, Oslove) is the capital and most populous city of Norway. It constitutes both a county and a municipality. The municipality of Oslo had a population of in 2022, while the city's greater urban area had a population of ...

and about south of the town of Elverum. The town is about from the

border Borders are usually defined as geographical boundaries, imposed either by features such as oceans and terrain, or by political entities such as governments, sovereign states, federated states, and other subnational entities. Political borders c ...

with

Sweden Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden,The United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names states that the country's formal name is the Kingdom of SwedenUNGEGN World Geographical Names, Sweden./ref> is a Nordic country located on ...

. The town has a population (2021) of 12,149 and a

population density Population density (in agriculture: standing stock or plant density) is a measurement of population per unit land area. It is mostly applied to humans, but sometimes to other living organisms too. It is a key geographical term.Matt RosenberPopul ...

of . The downtown area of Kongsvinger has a new public library and a town square. There are also plans for a new hotel to be built in conjunction to the refurbishment of the down town area as well as for the construction of two new shopping centres. These plans are part of the overall strategy of the city council to make Kongsvinger more attractive to

tourists Tourism is travel for pleasure or business; also the theory and practice of touring, the business of attracting, accommodating, and entertaining tourists, and the business of operating tours. The World Tourism Organization defines tourism mo ...

and potential new residents.

History

Kongsvinger already existed as a trading center by the

Middle Ages In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire a ...

, due to the accessibility by natural waterways.

Viking Vikings ; non, víkingr is the modern name given to seafaring people originally from Scandinavia (present-day Denmark, Norway and Sweden), who from the late 8th to the late 11th centuries raided, pirated, traded and se ...

chieftains reached

by boat from Kongsvinger.

Kongsvinger Fortress Kongsvinger Fortress ( no, Kongsvinger festning) is located in the city and municipality of Kongsvinger in the county of Hedmark, Norway. It is situated on a hill west and north of the Glomma river, standing astride the ancient Vinger Royal Road, ...

was founded in 1669, and a star-shaped plan was laid out for the fortress. Work began in 1682 and it was finished in 1690 as part of a general upgrade to

Norwegian fortresses Norwegian fortresses or fortifications have been constructed from some of the earliest recorded periods, down through the 20th century. The geography and topography of glacially carved, mountainous Norway constrain both the sea and the land rout ...

. The building of the fortress formed the foundations for what was to become the town of Kongsvinger. The fortress was built as a defensive structure against the Swedes, and on numerous occasions there have been military engagements in the area around the fortress, but Kongsvinger fortress has never been taken in military combat. Below Kongsvinger fortress lies ''Øvrebyen'', which literally translated means "upper town". This is the oldest part of the town of Kongsvinger, and one can still find a number of the original houses built after the establishment of the fortress. Kongsvinger Museum is located here, together with a museum of female emancipation in a building called "Rolighed", the home of

Dagny Juel Dagny Juel-Przybyszewska (8 June 1867 – 5 June 1901) was a Norwegian writer, famous for her liaisons with various prominent artists, and for the dramatic circumstances of her death. She was the model for some of Edvard Munch's paintings. She ...

, the famous author once portrayed by

Edvard Munch Edvard Munch ( , ; 12 December 1863 – 23 January 1944) was a Norwegian painter. His best known work, ''The Scream'' (1893), has become one of Western art's most iconic images. His childhood was overshadowed by illness, bereavement and the dr ...

. (Øvrebyen was designated as an area of special historical interest in 1973.) The Øvrebyen area around the fortress is dominated by wooden buildings from the 18th and 19th centuries, laid out in the typical right angle square plan that was designed by the architect

Johan Caspar von Cicignon Johan Caspar von Cicignon (c. 1625 - 12 December 1696) was a Luxembourg-born soldier and military engineer who spent most of his career in the service of Denmark–Norway. He is most associated with the reconstruction of Trondheim, Norway after th ...

which was very popular in this period. In 1854, the King designated the market town of Kongsvinger as a

kjøpstad A (historically: ''kjøbstad'', ''kjöbstad'', or ''kaupstad'') is an old Scandinavian term for a "market town" that was used in the Kingdom of Denmark-Norway for several hundred years. The name comes from the on, kaupstaðr. Kjøpstads were ...

, which gave it special rights. Because of this designation, on 7 February 1855, the town was separated from the municipality of

Vinger Vinger is a traditional district in Innlandet county, Norway. The district encompasses the lands that make up Kongsvinger and Eidskog municipalities. It is generally located to the south and east of the town of Kongsvinger and the river Glomm ...

to form a separate municipality. Initially, the town had 472 residents and this left Vinger municipality with 10,947 residents. On 1 January 1876, the town was enlarged when an area of

(population: 209) was transferred into Kongsvinger. Kongsvinger played an important part in the

Norwegian resistance The Norwegian resistance (Norwegian: ''Motstandsbevegelsen'') to the occupation of Norway by Nazi Germany began after Operation Weserübung in 1940 and ended in 1945. It took several forms: *Asserting the legitimacy of the exiled government, ...

force against the

Nazis Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Na ...

being a gateway to Sweden. Norway's highest decorated citizen,

Gunnar Sønsteby Gunnar Fridtjof Thurmann Sønsteby DSO ( 1918 – 10 May 2012) was a member of the Norwegian resistance movement during the German occupation of Norway in World War II. Known by the nickname "Kjakan" ("The Chin") and as "Agent No. 24", ...

frequently passed through Kongsvinger in his work to sabotage the Nazis' installations in Norway. Some of the busiest escape routes for refugees also went through Kongsvinger to Sweden. During the 1960s, there were many municipal mergers across Norway due to the work of the

Schei Committee The Schei Committee ( no, Schei-komitéen) was a committee named by the Government of Norway to look into the organization of municipalities in Norway post-World War II. It convened in 1946, and its formal name was (The 1946 Committee on Municip ...

. On 1 January 1964, the town of Kongsvinger (population: 2,345) and the surrounding municipalities of

(population: 6,257) and

Brandval Brandval is a former municipality in the old Hedmark county, Norway. The municipality existed from 1867 until its dissolution in 1964 when it became part of Kongsvinger Municipality. It was located in the southern part of the traditional distr ...

(population: 4,384) were merged to form the new

. From 1983 to 1999, and again in 2010, Kongsvinger's

association football Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of 11 players who primarily use their feet to propel the ball around a rectangular field called a pitch. The objective of the game is ...

team

KIL Toppfotball Kongsvinger IL Toppfotball is a Norwegian football club from the town of Kongsvinger in Innlandet, founded in 1892. Its home ground is Gjemselund Stadion. It is part of sporting association, Kongsvinger IL. Honours *Norwegian top flight **Runn ...

held a position in the

Norwegian Premier League Eliteserien () is a Norwegian professional league for association football clubs. At the top of the Norwegian football league system, it is the country's primary football competition. Contested by 16 clubs, it operates on a system of promotion ...

. It made some notable merits participating in the

UEFA Cup A cup is an open-top used to hold hot or cold liquids for pouring or drinking; while mainly used for drinking, it also can be used to store Solid, solids for pouring (e.g., sugar, flour, grains, salt). Cups may be made of glass, metal, porcela ...

and winning a

silver medal A silver medal in sports and other similar areas involving competition is a medal made of, or plated with, silver awarded to the second-place finisher, or runner-up, of contests or competitions such as the Olympic Games, Commonwealth Games, etc ...

during the 1992 season.

Name

The whole region where Kongsvinger is located was historically called ''

'' ( non, Vingr). This name could be related to the river

which flows through the region. One could compare this to the English word swing (for the missing ''s'' see

Indo-European s-mobile In Indo-European studies, the term s-''mobile'' ( ; the word is a Latin neuter adjective) designates the phenomenon where a PIE root appears to begin with an ' which is sometimes but not always present. It is therefore represented in the reflex o ...

). The river

passes through the center of the district where the south-flowing river takes a sharp northwestward turn. This can be compared to the similar Lithuanian word ''vìngis'' which means "bend", "bow", or "turn". This old name used to represent this whole area. The first element of the name ''Kongs-'' (meaning "the King's") was added after the

was built in 1690. It was first applied only to the fortress (written as in old documents). Then, it was later given to the town that grew up around it.

Coat of arms

The

coat of arms A coat of arms is a heraldry, heraldic communication design, visual design on an escutcheon (heraldry), escutcheon (i.e., shield), surcoat, or tabard (the latter two being outer garments). The coat of arms on an escutcheon forms the central ele ...

was granted on 25 June 1926. The arms show the

in gray on a black hill with a red background. Below the fortress is a white line representing the

river. The fortress is of historical importance to the area. The red and white colors were chosen because they are on the Norwegian flag.

Economy

There are 1,530 businesses including

forestry Forestry is the science and craft of creating, managing, planting, using, conserving and repairing forests, woodlands, and associated resources for human and environmental benefits. Forestry is practiced in plantations and natural stands. Th ...

and

farming Agriculture or farming is the practice of cultivating plants and livestock. Agriculture was the key development in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that enabled people to ...

, and 245 of these are retail outlets. There are of mall situated in the downtown area. As well as downtown shopping streets, there are also glass domed pedestrian shopping streets. The governmental regional Kongsvinger Hospital is also situated in Kongsvinger.

Subdivisions

The town of Kongsvinger is divided into several informal subdivisions: * Digerudlia * Gjemselund * Glåmlia * Hexumløkka * Holt * Kurudlia * Langeland * Langerudberget * Midtbyen * Rasta * Skriverskogen * Stasjonssida * Tråstad * Vangen * Vennersberg * Øvrebyen

References