Farsund

Farsund kommune
—  Municipality  —

Coat of arms

Vest-Agder within
Norway
Farsund within Vest-Agder
Coordinates:
Country Norway
County Vest-Agder
District Sørlandet
Administrative centre Farsund
Government
 • Mayor (2007) Stein Ytterdahl (Ap)
Area
 • Total 262.4 km2 (101.3 sq mi)
 • Land 252 km2 (97.3 sq mi)
Area rank 294 in Norway
Population (2008)
 • Total 9,392
 • Rank 107 in Norway
 • Density 35.8/km2 (92.7/sq mi)
 • Change (10 years) 1.4 %
Demonym Farsunder or Farsundar
(also Listelending or listring)[1]
Time zone CET (UTC+1)
 • Summer (DST) CEST (UTC+2)
ISO 3166 code NO-1003
Official language form Bokmål
Website www.farsund.kommune.no
Data from Statistics Norway
is a town and municipality in the county of Vest-Agder, Norway.

The town of Farsund was established as a municipality on 1 January 1838 (see formannskapsdistrikt), although already recognized as a trading center in 1795. The rural municipalities of Herad, Lista, and Spind were merged with Farsund on 1 January 1965.

Farsund is a coastal municipality, bordering on Kvinesdal municipality in the north and Lyngdal in the north and east. In terms of square mileage it is one of the smallest municipalities in Vest-Agder county, yet one of the largest in number of inhabitants. The municipality of Farsund has about 9,400 inhabitants, concentrated in three centres of population: Farsund town, Vanse, and Vestbygda.

Contents

General information

Name

The first element is far n 'travel, journey' (like in English farewell 'good journey'), the last element is sund n 'strait, sound'.

Coat-of-arms

The coat-of-arms has been used since 1900 or 1901. It shows four linden trees (Tilia). Since around 1750 four linden trees stand in the center of the town.[2]

Economy

The largest industries are Alcoa Lista, an aluminium plant, and Farsund Aluminium Casting AS, which makes auto parts of aluminium. Historically, shipping and fisheries have also been important. Farsund is the largest agricultural district in the county of Vest-Agder, having 26 km² productive land, 88 km² forest, and 17 km² freshwater areas. Farsund was already organized as a trading centre in 1795, and in 1995 celebrated its 200 year jubilee.

Famous residents

References

External links