Risør is a municipality in Agder county. It is located towards
the Skagerrak and borders in the southwest towards Tvedestrand, in
the northwest towards Vegårshei and Gjerstad and in the northeast
towards Kragerø. The administration center in the municipality is
the town of Risør, which has 4,609 inhabitants as of 1 January 2020.
In 1964, the city municipality of Risør was merged with Søndeled
municipality. Risør became the name of the new municipality.
The names Risør and Søndeled
The name Risør comes from the
island Risøya, an island outside the city, which is overgrown with
bushes (rice). The old place name for the town was Øster-Riisøer, to
distinguish the town from Vester-Risøer (Mandal). It was used until
1905, when Risør became the official spelling. Risør town is often
called Trehusbyen or Den hvite by ved Skagerrak.
The meaning
of the name Søndeled is unclear. According to Professor Oluf Rygh,
the oldest spelling should be Sundaleid, Sundaleir or Sundaleidi.
According to Professor Rygh, the first part is the plural form of
the word "sound", and the second part is related to the word leid or
led, another word for "road". This trail through the straits,
Professor Rygh believed, must have been the original name of the
fjord, and that the name was eventually transferred to the farm in
the innermost part of the fjord, then to the church and the parish.
Geography and nature
Most of the old Søndeled municipality
(now Risør municipality) is characterized by a strongly hilly
terrain with wooded hills and boulders. The municipality has three
large fjords, Nordfjorden, Sørfjorden and Sandnesfjorden, stand out
in the landscape. At the bottom of the Søndeledfjord, the Gjerstad
watercourse empties out and the village of Søndeled is also located
at the bottom of the Søndeledfjord. Risør lies snugly behind
protective islets and cuts a few stone's throw from the open sea, on
the large peninsula that forms between the two fjords.
Geology
This part of Agder belongs to the Bamble field in the
Svekonorvegian bedrock shield, and consists of two main geological
formations of Proterozoic rocks formed during the Gothic and later
Svekonorvegian mountain range ancestors, with a strong metamorphosis
under 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). The youngest
Sveconorvegian formations are witnessed by larger formations of
granite. There are also some cases 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.