Spydeberg

Spydeberg kommune
—  Municipality  —

Coat of arms

Østfold within
Norway
Spydeberg within Østfold
Coordinates:
Country Norway
County Østfold
Administrative centre Spydeberg
Area
 • Total 142 km2 (54.8 sq mi)
 • Land 133 km2 (51.4 sq mi)
Area rank 362 in Norway
Population (2004)
 • Total 5,186
 • Rank 201 in Norway
 • Density 35/km2 (90.6/sq mi)
 • Change (10 years) 9.7 %
Demonym Speberging[1]
Time zone CET (UTC+1)
 • Summer (DST) CEST (UTC+2)
ISO 3166 code NO-0123
Official language form Bokmål
Website www.spydeberg.kommune.no
Data from Statistics Norway

Spydeberg is a municipality in Østfold county, Norway. The administrative centre of the municipality is the village of Spydeberg. It is divided into the parishes Spydeberg, Heli, and Hovin. Spydeberg was established as a municipality on 1 January 1838 (see formannskapsdistrikt).

The village of Spydeberg has approximately 4,000 inhabitants. It is located 45 kilometres (28 mi) southeast 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.

Contents

General information

Name

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

Coat-of-arms

The coat-of-arms is from modern times. They were granted on 30 June 1978. The arms show three canting silver spear points (from the word spyd which comes from the Old Norse word spjót) on a red background. The model for the spear points was unearthed at a burial mound near Mørk in 1905. The three spears represent the three parishes in the municipality. It was designed by Truls Nygaard.[2][3]

Notable residents

Sister cities

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.[4]

References

External links