Editing Kristiansund Municipality (section)

==General information==
The [[prestegjeld|parish]] of ''Christianssund'' was established as a municipality on 1 January 1838 (see [[formannskapsdistrikt]] law). Initially, the small island municipality included just the town of Christianssund and its immediate surrounding area. During the 1960s, there were many municipal mergers across Norway due to the work of the [[Schei Committee]]. On 1 January 1964, Kristiansund Municipality was merged with the tiny [[Grip Municipality]] (population: 104), an island municipality to the northwest and the ''Dale'' area of [[Bremsnes Municipality]] on [[Nordlandet]] island (population: 963).<ref name="jukvam1999">{{Cite book |last=Jukvam |first=Dag |url=http://www.ssb.no/emner/00/90/rapp_9913/rapp_9913.pdf |title=Historisk oversikt over endringer i kommune- og fylkesinndelingen |publisher=[[Statistics Norway|Statistisk sentralbyrå]] |year=1999 |isbn=9788253746845 |language=no}}</ref> The neighboring [[Frei Municipality]] was merged with Kristiansund on 1 January 2008 creating a much larger Kristiansund Municipality.

===Toponymy===
The municipality is named after the [[Kristiansund (town)|town of Kristiansund]]. Historically, it was spelled ''Christianssund''. The first element of the name comes from the [[Denmark-Norway|Danish-Norwegian]] King [[Christian VI of Denmark|Christian VI]] who founded the town in 1742. The last element of the name is {{wikt-lang|non|sund}} which means "[[strait]]" or "[[Sound (geography)|sound]]". The old name of the town/village (originally the island [[Kirkelandet]]) was ''Fosna'' or ''Fosen'' ({{langx|non|fólgsn}}) which means "hiding place" (here 'hidden port'). It was also often named ''Lille Fosen'' ("the small Fosen") to distinguish it from the island ''[[Storfosna]]'' ("the big Fosen") in [[Ørland Municipality|Ørland]].

Before 1877, the name was spelled ''Christianssund'', from 1877 to 1888 it was spelled ''Kristianssund'', and since 1889 it has had its present spelling, ''Kristiansund''.

Before the introduction of [[postal code]]s in Norway in 1968, it was easy to confuse the name ''Kristiansund'' with [[Kristiansand]] in the south. It was therefore obligatory to always add an ''N'' (for north) to Kristiansund ''(Kristiansund N)'' and an ''S'' (for south) to Kristiansand ''(Kristiansand S)''. This is pretty much still practiced and also occurs in some other contexts than postal addresses.
{{see also-text|{{wikt-lang|no|Kristiansund}} at Wiktionary}}

===Coat of arms===
The [[coat of arms]] was granted on 27 June 1742. The arms were granted by King [[Christian VI of Denmark|Christian VI]] and are described as a silver or white [[Waterfall|river flowing from a cliff]], with [[salmon]] swimming upwards on a blue background. The waterfall is most likely based on a misinterpretaion of the old name for the town ''Fosen'', as it resembles the [[Norwegian language|Norwegian]] word for "waterfall".<ref name="snl">{{Cite encyclopedia |title=Kristiansund |encyclopedia=[[Store norske leksikon]] |publisher=[[Kunnskapsforlaget]] |url=https://snl.no/Kristiansund |access-date=2019-05-23 |date=2018-09-26 |editor-last=Stokken |editor-first=John |language=no |editor2-first=Geir |editor2-last=Thorsnæs}}</ref> A replica of the waterfall shown in the arms was eventually constructed in 1992 for the towns 250th anniversary.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Byfossen i Kristiansund |url=https://kristiansund.nkdb.no/objekt/80101/Byfossen+i+Kristiansund |access-date=2024-04-20 |website=kristiansund.nkdb.no |language=nb-NO}}</ref>

===Churches===
The [[Church of Norway]] has three parishes ({{lang|no|sokn}}) within Kristiansund Municipality. It is part of the [[Ytre Nordmøre prosti]] ([[deanery]]) in the [[Diocese of Møre]].

{| class="wikitable" style="text-align:center"
|+ style="font-size:medium"|'''''Churches in Kristiansund'''''
!Parish ({{lang|no|sokn}})!!Church name!!Location of the church!!Year built
|-
|rowspan="2"|Kristiansund||[[Kirkelandet Church]]||[[Kirklandet]] island||1964
|-
|[[Grip Stave Church]]||[[Grip, Norway|Grip]] island||1470
|-
|Nordlandet||[[Nordlandet Church]]||[[Nordlandet]] island||1914
|-
|Frei||[[Frei Church]]|||[[Nedre Frei]]||1897
|}

St. Eystein Catholic Church is the only [[Catholic]] church in Kristiansund.