Spydeberg

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Spydeberg kommune
—  Municipality  —
Coat of arms of Spydeberg kommune
Coat of arms
Official logo of Spydeberg kommune
Østfold within
Norway
Spydeberg within Østfold
Spydeberg within Østfold
Coordinates: 59°36′55″N 11°4′35″E / 59.61528, 11.07639
Country Norway
County Østfold
Municipality ID NO-0123
Administrative centre Spydeberg
Government
 - Mayor (2003) Stein Håland (Sp)
Area (Nr. 362 in Norway)
 - Total 142 km² (54.8 sq mi)
 - Land 133 km² (51.4 sq mi)
Population (2004)
 - Total 4,706
 - Density 35/km² (90.6/sq mi)
 - Change (10 years) 9.7 %
 - Rank in Norway 201
Time zone CET (UTC+1)
 - Summer (DST) CEST (UTC+2)
Official language form Bokmål
Data from Statistics Norway
Website: www.spydeberg.kommune.no

Spydeberg is a municipality in the county of Østfold, Norway. It is divided into the parishes Spydeberg, Heli and Hovin.

Spydeberg was established as a municipality January 1, 1838 (see formannskapsdistrikt).

The town of Spydeberg has approximately 4,000 inhabitants. It is located 45 km south-east of Oslo and is easily reached by a bus and a train line. There are 16 daily buses to Oslo, and about 12 train departures. A lot of the people in Spydeberg commute to Oslo for work. It is a very pleasant community with quite good infrastructure and is considered to be a safe and nice town to live in for families.

The municipality of Spydeberg has been quite active in international relations for over 20 years. The town has sister cities in Denmark, Sweden and Latvia. The Latvian counterpart is the village of Straupe, located approximately 90 km north-east of Riga. Excellent relations are being developed over the years with the people of this little village in Latvia. Straupe is celebrating its 800 years history in June/July of 2006.

[edit] Public figures

Petter Solberg, the famous WRC rally driver for Subaru, was born in Askim and raised in Spydeberg. He became FIA World Rally Champion in 2003. At present he lives officially in Monaco. His older brother Henning Solberg, current WRC rally driver for Ford, is still living at Spydeberg. Former Norwegian rally and race ace John Unnerud is also a in Scandinavia wellknown personality from Spydeberg.

Anton Skulberg, a former mayor of Spydeberg, was also a professor and cabinet member.

[edit] The name

The municipality (originally the parish) is named after the old farm Spydeberg (Norse Spjótaberg), since the first church was built here. The first element is the genitive plural case of spjót n 'spear', the last element is berg n 'mountain'. The word 'spear' is here probably referring to some outstanding points of a berg nearby.

[edit] Coat-of-arms

The coat-of-arms is from modern times (1978). It shows three heads of spears representing the three parishes of the municipality.

Stasjonsgaten, Spydeberg
Stasjonsgaten, Spydeberg