Editing Kristiansand (section)

==History==
[[File:Oddernes kirke B.JPG|thumb|[[Oddernes Church]] in Lund, Kristiansand, erected around 1040]]
[[File:Kristiansand JW Edy.jpg|thumb|Kristiansand in summer 1800, painted by [[John William Edy|J. W. Edy]]]]

===Prehistory and early history===
The Kristiansand area has been inhabited since prehistoric times. In 1996, the well-preserved skeleton of a woman dating to approximately 6500&nbsp;BC was discovered in [[Søgne]] in western Kristiansand. This demonstrates very early habitation of the archipelago. Grauthelleren (''Grathelleren''), located on Fidjane, is believed to be a [[Stone Age]] settlement. The first discovery in Norway of a Sarup enclosure (a [[Neolithic]] form of ritual enclosure first identified at Sarup on the Danish island of [[Funen]]) was made in 2010 at Hamresanden and dates to c. 3400&nbsp;BC. Archaeological excavations to the east of [[Oddernes Church]] have uncovered rural settlements that existed during the centuries immediately before and after the start of the [[Common Era|common era]]. Together with a corresponding discovery in [[Rogaland]], these settlements are unique in the Norwegian context; isolated farms, rather than villages, were the norm in ancient Norway. Other discoveries in [[grave mound]]s around the church, in the Lund section of the city, indicate habitation beginning c.&nbsp;400&nbsp;AD, and 25 cooking pits that were found immediately outside the church wall in 1907 are probably even older. One of the largest [[Norse paganism|pre-Christian]] burial grounds in South Norway was formerly located to the south and west of the church. A royal centre is thought to have existed at Oddernes before 800, and the church was built around 1040.

Before the stone church was built, one or perhaps two wooden [[post church]]es are believed to have stood on the same spot. A few years ago, excavations were carried out under and around the runestone when it was moved to the church porch; the grave finds indicated that the churchyard must already have been unusually large in the [[High Middle Ages]]. This means that the area must have had a large population before it was reduced by the [[Black Death]].

In the 14th and 15th centuries, there was already a busy port and a small village on the [[Otra]] at the lowest point of today's Lund neighbourhood (Lahelle). Another important element in the development of Kristiansand was the harbor on the island of [[Flekkerøy]], which was the most important on the [[Skagerrak]] beginning in the 16th century and was first fortified under King [[Christian III of Denmark and Norway|Christian III]] in 1555. In 1635, King [[Christian IV of Denmark|Christian IV]] ordered his [[Seignory|feudal seigneur]], Palle Rosenkrantz, to move from Nedenes and build a royal palace on the island.

===Foundation to 1900===
[[File:Monument King Christian IV Kristianssand Noreg.JPG|thumb|right|Monument of King Christian IV, located in the Festningsgaten (The Fortress Street), Kristiansand. The plaque reads: "Christian IV Grunnla Vår By Anno 1641" - "Christian IV Founded Our City Anno 1641".]]
Christian IV (renowned for having founded many towns) visited the location in 1630 and 1635, and on 5 July 1641 formally founded the town of ''Christianssand'' on the "sand" on the opposite bank of the Torridalselva (Otra). The town was laid out in [[Renaissance architecture|Renaissance]] style on a [[grid plan]] (the central section now known as ''Kvadraturen'' = The Quarters), and merchants throughout Agder were commanded to move to the new town. In return, they were to receive a variety of trading privileges and a ten-year tax exemption.

In 1666, Christianssand became a [[garrison]] town and was heavily fortified. In 1682, King [[Christian V]] decided to relocate the [[Diocese of Agder og Telemark|bishopric]] there from [[Stavanger]]. Hence, the young city became the main city of the Christiansand Stift.

Christianssand experienced its first fire in 1734, which was devastating to the city. Later in the 18th century, after the [[American Revolutionary War]], the town's shipbuilders experienced an economic boom that lasted until the [[Napoleonic Wars]], which struck a severe blow to Kristiansand's overseas trade. [[Denmark–Norway]] supported France in the conflict, and as a result Norwegian ports including Kristiansand were [[blockade]]d by the [[Royal Navy]], as recounted in [[Henrik Ibsen]]'s ''[[Terje Vigen]]''. By the 1830s, the town's economy began to rebound, and the growth in the Norwegian shipping industry was important for Kristiansand. It was the only part of Norway where oak trees flourished, a major resource for the country's shipbuilding industry. Large numbers of lobsters were collected off the coast and sent to [[London]] during the mid-19th century. The population of Kristiansand was about 12,000 people by 1848.<ref>{{Cite book |title=The National Cyclopaedia of Useful Knowledge, Vol IV |date=1848 |publisher=Charles Knight |edition=First |location=London |page=526}}</ref>

On 1 January 1838, the new [[formannskapsdistrikt]] law went into effect. This new law granted municipal self-government throughout Norway. As a city, it formed its own municipal government and it was surrounded by the rural municipality of [[Oddernes (municipality)|Oddernes]].<ref name="Dag">{{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 City of Kristiansand had a quarantine station for maritime traffic and hospital at [[Odderøy Island]] for [[cholera]] patients that opened in 1804. The city had far fewer deaths than the surrounding area, largely attributable to the quarantine station and the hospital. For example, during the period of 1833–1866, [[Drammen]] had 544 cholera patients, of which 336 died. During this same period, Kristiansand only experienced 15 deaths from cholera.<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Torstveit |first1=L. |last2=Vesterhus |first2=P. |date=15 December 2005 |title=Kolera og karantene i Kristiansand |trans-title=Cholera and quarantine in Kristiansand |url=http://tidsskriftet.no/2005/12/medisinsk-historie/kolera-og-karantene-i-kristiansand |url-status=live |journal=Tidsskr Nor Laegeforen |language=no, en |volume=125 |issue=24 |pages=3490–3 |pmid=16357901 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180830174226/https://tidsskriftet.no/2005/12/medisinsk-historie/kolera-og-karantene-i-kristiansand |archive-date=30 August 2018 |access-date=2 May 2017}}</ref>

[[File:Kart over Kristiansand (1887).jpg|thumb|left|Map of downtown Kristiansand from 1887]]
Another important development during the 19th century was the foundation in 1881 of ''{{Not a typo|E|g}} Sindssygeasyl'', the second central psychiatric institution in Norway (after [[Gaustad]]). The psychiatric hospital drew highly specialized doctors to the city and also provided many jobs for women.

The most recent major fire, in 1892, left half the original section of the city in ashes. It burned buildings as far as [[Kristiansand Cathedral|the cathedral]], which had been rebuilt in brick after a previous fire in 1880.

===1900 onward===
With the development of [[hydropower]] in southern Norway, the city gradually developed an industrial base, particularly with the establishment in 1910 of the nickel refinery Kristiansands Nikkelraffineringsverk AS (later Falconbridge Nikkelverk,<ref name="archibald62">{{cite journal |doi=10.1007/BF03378184}}</ref> now Glencore Nikkelverk). From an economic perspective, the [[First World War]] was a good time for Kristiansand, as a neutral shipping city. The crises that followed with the [[gold standard]] politics of the 1920s and the [[Great Depression|world economic crisis]] of the 1930s were also deeply felt in a trading city like Kristiansand.

On 1 July 1921, the city of Kristiansand got larger by annexing a part of the neighboring municipality of [[Oddernes (municipality)|Oddernes]], gaining 2,164 more residents along with more land for the growing city.<ref name="Dag" />

The labour movement had important pioneers in the city, and [[Leon Trotsky]] spent about a year of his exile in the archipelago offshore from Kristiansand. [[Arnulf Øverland]] took him from [[Randesund]] to [[Ny-Hellesund]] in [[Søgne]] in 1936.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Langfeldt |first=Jan G. |title=Langfeldt-slektens og Ny-Hellesunds historie |year=2004 |isbn=82-994591-2-5 |page=80 |publisher=J.G. Langfeldt |language=no}}</ref> In the interwar period Kristiansand was a centre for intellectuals, especially after the architect Thilo Schoder settled there in 1932.

Kristiansand was attacked by [[Kriegsmarine|German naval forces]] and the [[Luftwaffe]] during the [[Operation Weserübung]] on 9 April 1940. The naval forces met fierce resistance from Norwegian [[coastal artillery]] at [[Odderøya]]. Bombs and grenades also hit the downtown and the 70 meter high church tower of the [[Kristiansand Cathedral]] was hit by accident. The third attack attempt on the city succeeded because a signal flag was confused with a French national flag and the misunderstanding was not discovered until it was too late. The city was occupied by a force of 800 men.

During the 1960s, there were many municipal mergers across Norway due to the work of the [[Schei Committee]]. On 1 January 1965, the city of Kristiansand (population: 27,100) was merged with the neighboring municipalities of [[Randesund (municipality)|Randesund]] (population: 1,672), [[Tveit (municipality)|Tveit]] (population: 2,802), and [[Oddernes (municipality)|Oddernes]] (population: 18,668) to create a much larger Kristiansand Municipality.<ref name="Dag" />

Post-war construction included further development of the Lund section, and in the 1960s and 1970s [[Vågsbygd]] to the west was developed into a section with 20,000 inhabitants. In the 1980s, industry and business in the city declined, in part because of the [[Hotel Caledonien fire|1986 fire at the Hotel Caledonien]]. But beginning in the second half of the 1990s, business increased in momentum with the development of enterprises for marine and offshore equipment, security technology and drilling.

The older municipal archives for Kristiansand (and the former municipalities) are currently held at the Inter-Municipal Archives in Vest-Agder (IKAVA). This includes documents concerning, for example, local councils, chairmanships, poor boards, school boards and archives including among other things personal documents in the form of client records, tax records, and also school records.

On 1 January 2020, the three neighbouring municipalities of Kristiansand, [[Songdalen]], and [[Søgne]] were merged to form one large municipality called ''Kristiansand''.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Nye Kristiansand |url=https://www.kristiansand.kommune.no/nye-kristiansand/ |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190901160910/https://www.kristiansand.kommune.no/nye-kristiansand/ |archive-date=1 September 2019 |access-date=2017-11-05 |publisher=Kristiansand kommune |language=no}}</ref>

===Coat-of-arms===
The arms of Kristiansand were granted on 8 December 1909 and are based on the oldest seal of the city, dating from 1643. In 1643 King Christian IV granted the young town the right to use a seal with the [[Coat of arms of Norway#Golden lion|Norwegian lion]] and the royal crown. The crown indicates that the city was founded by the king. The other major element in the arms is a tree. As the species of tree is not specified, there are several known versions with differently shaped trees. A second seal, from 1658, shows a tree with leaves and what look like pine cones.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Norske Kommunevåpen |year=1990 |title=Nye kommunevåbener i Norden |url=http://www.ngw.nl/int/nor/k/kristian.htm |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070715090151/http://www.ngw.nl/int/nor/k/kristian.htm |archive-date=15 July 2007 |access-date=2008-09-27 |language=no}}</ref> On the base of the crown are the letters R. F. P., standing for ''Regna Firma Pietas'', "Piety strengthens the realm"; this was Christian IV's [[motto]]. Around the seal of the city is its motto, ''Cavsa Triumphat Tandem Bona'', "A good cause prevails in the end".<ref>{{Cite web |date=23 August 1989 |title=Regler om bruk av Kristiansands byvåpen og segl i ikke kommunalt øyemed |url=http://www.kristiansand.kommune.no/PageFiles/16611/Regler%20for%20bruk%20av%20byv%C3%A5penet.pdf |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131225223222/http://www.kristiansand.kommune.no/PageFiles/16611/Regler%20for%20bruk%20av%20byv%C3%A5penet.pdf |archive-date=25 December 2013 |access-date=2013-12-24 |publisher=Municipality of Kristiansand |language=no}}</ref>