Åsnes

Åsnes is a municipality in Innlandet county, Norway. It is part of the traditional region of Solør. The administrative centre of the municipality is the village of Flisa, which is also the largest town in the municipality with around 2,100 people.

Åsnes kommune
Municipality
Coat of arms
Innlandet within
Norway
Åsnes within Innlandet
Coordinates: 60°39′13″N 12°9′11″E
CountryNorway
CountyInnlandet
DistrictSolør
Administrative centreFlisa
Government
 • Mayor (2019)Ørjan Bue (Senterpartiet)
Area
 • Total1,041 km2 (402 sq mi)
 • Land1,004 km2 (388 sq mi)
Area rank100 in Norway
Population
 (2004)
 • Total7,581
 • Rank127 in Norway
 • Density8/km2 (20/sq mi)
 • Change (10 years)
−5.6%
Demonym(s)Åsnessokning[1]
Time zoneUTC+01:00 (CET)
 • Summer (DST)UTC+02:00 (CEST)
ISO 3166 codeNO-3418
Official language formBokmål[2]
Websitewww.asnes.kommune.no
Data from Statistics Norway

General information

Name

The municipality (originally the parish) is named after the old Åsnes farm (Old Norse: Ásnes), since the first church was built here. The first element is áss which means "mountain ridge" and the last element is nes which means "headland". (The headland is made by the river Glomma, and the farm is lying beneath a hill.)

Coat-of-arms

The coat-of-arms is from modern times. They were granted on 9 December 2001. The arms show three black hooks for log driving on a gold background. This was chosen to represent the importance of logging and forestry to the municipality throughout history.[3][4]

See also: Coats-of-arms for Fet, Jondal, Marker, and Nordre Land
Number of minorities (1st and 2nd generation) in Åsnes by country of origin in 2017[5]
Ancestry Number
 Poland59
 Lithuania58
 Sweden55
 Eritrea32
 Thailand29
 Syria25
 Bosnia-Herzegovina23
 Denmark22

History

Åsnes was originally part of the larger district Hof. It was first split into two: Hof and Åsnes og Våler in 1849. The split left Hof with 2,913 inhabitants and Åsnes og Våler with 7,087. Åsnes og Våler was again divided in 1854 into the two current municipalities of Våler and Åsnes. At that time, Åsnes had 3,644 inhabitants while Våler had 3,410. In 1963, Hof was incorporated back into Åsnes. The population of Åsnes grew fast between 1854 and 1963 and today its population is roughly equal to that of Hof and Våler combined. There has been talk of further municipality merging but the neighboring municipalities Grue and Våler have rejected Åsnes in favor of bigger municipalities.

Geography

The municipality is located in the southern part of Hedmark county. It is bordered on the north by the municipality of Våler, in the south by Grue, and in the west by Nord-Odal and Stange, and to the east it borders Torsby Municipality in Sweden.

Finnskogen or the forest of the Finns is a belt about 32 kilometres (20 mi) wide which runs continuously northwards along the border between Norway and Sweden through six Norwegian municipalities, including Åsnes.

Notable people
Johannes Bergh, 1890
Gunnar Gundersen, 2008

Sister cities

The following cities are twinned with Åsnes:[6]

References
  1. "Navn på steder og personer: Innbyggjarnamn" (in Norwegian). Språkrådet.
  2. "Forskrift om målvedtak i kommunar og fylkeskommunar" (in Norwegian). Lovdata.no.
  3. "Kommunevåpen" (in Norwegian). Åsnes kommune. Retrieved 2008-12-21.
  4. Norske Kommunevåpen (1990). "Nye kommunevåbener i Norden". Retrieved 2008-12-21.
  5. "Immigrants and Norwegian-born to immigrant parents". ssb.no. Archived from the original on 2 July 2015. Retrieved 29 June 2015.
  6. "Vennskapskommuner" (in Norwegian). Åsnes kommune. Retrieved 2008-12-21.
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