Kristiansand (formerly written Christianssand / Christiansand) is
a town and a municipality in Agder county. The municipality is
Norway's sixth largest by population and had 111,634 inhabitants as
of 1 January 2020. The town of Kristiansand had 64,596 inhabitants
as of 1 January 2020. The city is named after Christian IV.
Kristiansand borders in the west to Lindesnes, in the north to
Vennesla and Birkenes, and in the east to Lillesand. The
inter-municipal activities in Knutepunkt Sørlandet include all these
municipalities, as well as Iveland.
Name
The city is named after King Christian IV, who founded
the city Christiansand on July 5, 1641. In 1877, the spelling
Kristiansand was introduced in Norway's State Calendar, and the same
spelling was applied to Kristiania and Kristiansund, and later the
spelling was used in municipal contexts. The spelling Christiansand,
from the 19th century - in the 18th century it was most common with
only one s - has been retained in the names of a number of companies
and associations, such as Christiansands Bryggeri, Christiansands
Byselskab, Christianssand Storband and political parties in the
city, among others. Former mayor of Kristiansand Arvid Grundekjøn
has stated, half jokingly, that the city should change the spelling
of Christianssand, and at the same time proposed to change the
mayoral title to mayor; he justified it by saying that "the mayor of
Christiansand has a completely different buzz than the mayor of
Kristiansand".
Nature, geography and climate
Kristiansand
is strategically located by the Skagerrak, and before the opening of
the Kiel Canal, the area was very important militarily and
geopolitically. This led to the place for centuries functioned as a
military base, from Harald Haarfagre's royal estate to the
Denmark-Norway fortress and later as a garrison town. Kristiansand
is a gateway to and from the Continent, with ferry connections to
Denmark and the domestic starting point for the railway route along
the bottom of Sørlandsgrabenen.
This part of Agder belongs to
the Svekonorvegian bedrock shield, and consists of two main
geological formations of Proterozoic rocks formed during the Gothic
and later Svekonorvegian mountain range folds, with a strong
metamorphosis in the latter. A substrate of 1,600 - 1,450 million
years old slate, quartzite, marble and amphibolite with some
hornblende gneiss, and on top of this acidic surface structures of
both granite and granodiorite (respectively 1,250 - 1,000 million
years old, and in places 1,550 - 1,480 million years old). East of
the municipality, the Bamble field starts and extends east to
Grenland.
The youngest Sveconorvegian formations are
witnessed by larger formations of granite. There are also times of
gabbro and diorite, less often eclogite. The Caledonian mountain
range fold did not reach down here. The faults go in a
southwest-northeast direction. Volcanic activity for approx. 300
million years ago, times of diabase left at Kroodden, for example.
Kristiansand has a maritime climate with small daily and annual
temperature differences compared to an inland climate. Snowfall is
periodic and not annual. The Gulf Stream provides local heating
through the surface currents along the Norwegian Channel. It is also
the Gulf Stream that gives Kristiansand mild winters when warming
the coast.