Røros is a municipality and mountain town in Trøndelag. The
municipality borders in the north to Tydal and Holtålen, in the
southwest to Os in Østerdalen, in the south to Engerdal and in the
east to Härjedalen in Sweden. The town of Røros had 3,836
inhabitants as of 1 January 2020.
The basis for the Røros
community was the mining company Røros Kobberverk and the town is
consequently referred to as Bergstaden or rather Sta'a in the local
dialect. There are great cultural heritage interests in the area,
and the entire Røros mountain town and the Circumference are on
UNESCO's list of world cultural heritage.
In Røros
municipality you will find two national parks, Femundsmarka National
Park and Forollhogna National Park.
Røros has a cold record
of -50.4 ° C, set on 13 January 1914, and is thus one of the coldest
places in Norway. This temperature is the lowest measured in
southern Norway. The heat record was set in July 2008 and reads 30.7
degrees.
Røros was completely rebuilt after Swedish troops
destroyed it in 1679. In the 1600s, large parts of the crown and
church estates were sold to recover debts the kingdoms had
accumulated after the wars in the 1650s when the Kingdom of
Denmark-Norway lost the Danish landscape Scania , Halland and
Blekinge, and the Norwegian landscapes Jemtland, Härjedalen, Idre
and Särna and Båhuslen. Several of King Christian IV's creditors
received goods as liquidation of receivables. The largest single
sale, and the largest sale of land that has ever taken place in the
Nordic countries, was the transfer of all crown property in
Helgeland, Salten, Lofoten, Vesterålen, Andenes, Senja and Troms to
the creditor, mining magnate and landowner Joachim Irgens from
Itzehoe in Holstein. The value was estimated at 100,000 riksdaler,
which was equivalent to a barrel of gold.
Together with other
of the king's German and Dutch creditors, Irgens also took over the
ownership of large parts of the Norwegian mining operations. In
1646, Joachim (Jochim or Jochum) Jürgens (Irgens) traveled with the
King to Trondheim, and was then referred to as a «man who found
great taste in mines». After the King's son-in-law, Governor
Hannibal Sehested, fell out of favor with Christian IV, Joachim
Irgens at Kgl.res. in Rendsborg 19 October 1646 also transferred the
privilege of Rørosverket. On October 4, 1674 he was knighted as
Baron Irgens von Westervick.
He lived on his estates in
Denmark, Amsterdam and on the East Indies, and was rarely in Norway.
When King Fredrik III in 1666 handed over the crown estates in
northern Norway to Joachim Irgens, the right to the Finnish tax also
came with it, and Irgens was the most powerful landowner in
Denmark-Norway. After Irgens, the famous Tromsøgodset arose, which
was taken over by the heirs, including Georg Wasmuth.
In
1659, his nephew, Henning Irgens, was hired as Joachim Irgens'
personal representative to keep an eye on Rørosverket's then
director Jacob Mathias Tax. Henning Irgens was a candidate for law
at the University of Kiel. In 1669, Henning Irgens became director
of Røros Kobberverk. He was described as "an angry and unwilling
man" against the workers, and these sent complaints to him several
times. But after the war against Sweden, he took such good care of
the workers that they "humbly" asked him to stay.