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About Kongsberg


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Kongsberg is a town and municipality in Buskerud county, Norway. It is located at the southern end of the traditional region of Numedal. The administrative centre of the municipality is the town of Kongsberg.

The town was founded in 1624 under the name Konings Bierg by Danish-Norwegian king Christian IV as a mining community. It was granted its royal charter of trade�amounting to official township�in 1802. The municipality of Kongsberg was established on 1 January 1838 (see formannskapsdistrikt). The rural municipalities of Ytre Sandsv�r and �vre Sandsv�r were merged into the municipality of Kongsberg on 1 January 1964.

Today, Kongsberg is perhaps best known for being the home of Norway's major defense contractor, Kongsberg Gruppen, formerly Kongsberg Vaapenfabrikk. Two of its well known products were the Kongsberg Colt and the Krag-J�rgensen rifle. The latter was adopted in the late 19th century as the standard army rifle in Denmark, United States of America and Norway

The name Konings Bierg, a modern form Kongsberg, is based on the following two elements: the genitive case of konge which means "king" (referring to king Christian IV) and berg which means "mountain".

The coat-of-arms is from modern times and was designed by Hallvard Tretteberg. They were granted on 25 August 1972. They are based upon the old seal for the city from 1689 which shows the Roman god Janus dressed as an emperor (to represent the king); the sword and the pair of scales represents justice. The color green represents the forests, silver represents the mountains, and gold represents wealth
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