Lillehammer is a town and municipality in Oppland county, Norway. It is part of the traditional region of Gudbrandsdal. The administrative centre of the municipality is the town of Lillehammer. As of May 2011, the population of the town of Lillehammer was 26,639. The city centre is a late 19th century concentration of wooden houses, which enjoys a picturesque location overlooking the northern part of lake Mj�sa and the river L�gen, surrounded by mountains. Lillehammer hosted the 1994 Winter Olympics and will host the 2016 Winter Youth Olympics.The municipality is named for the old timur (Old Norse: Hamarr, "rocky hill") farm, since the first church was built there. To distinguish it from the nearby town and bishopric ofHamar, it began to be called "little Hamar": Lil�l� Hamar and Litlihamarr and finally Lillehammer.
It is also mentioned in the Old Norse sagas as Litlikaupangr ("Little Trading Place").
The coat-of-arms was granted in 1898. The arms show a birkebeiner, carrying a spear and a shield, who is skiing down a mountainside. It symbolizes the historical importance of when the Birkebeiners carried the to-be-King Haakon from Lillehammer to Rena on skis
