Kongsberg, Viken County, Eastern Norway Region, Norway

🇳🇴 Kongsberg is a town and municipality in Viken county, Norway. Kongsberg is the administration centre in Kongsberg municipality. The city is located on the river Numedalslågen at the entrance to the valley of Numedal. Kongsberg has been a centre of silver mining, arms production and forestry for centuries, and is the site of high technology industry including the headquarters of Norway's largest defence contractor Kongsberg Gruppen.

Kongsberg, formerly spelled Konningsberg ("King's Mountain"), was developed as a mining city on the basis of the Kongsberg Silver Mines, founded by and named after King Christian IV of Denmark and Norway in 1624. The king invited German engineers and other specialists from Saxony and the Harz region to help build the mining company. As a mining city, Kongsberg had a distinct urban culture that contrasted with its surroundings, strongly influenced by the traditions of mining communities in Germany and where the German language was extensively used in mining business and for religious services. In the first years nearly half of the city's population were German immigrants, and the majority of the engineers and executives were German immigrants and their descendants well into the 19th century, becoming a distinct social class called mining families that formed the educated social elite of Kongsberg in contrast to the Norwegian farming population; the first Nobel laureate in economics Ragnar Frisch belonged to such a Kongsberg mining family. By the 18th century Kongsberg was Norway's second largest city, second only to Bergen. Kongsberg was one of Norway's two privileged mining cities and thus formed a special mining jurisdiction (Norwegian: Bergstad), and only became part of Buskerud county in 1760. On 1 January 1838, the new national law, creating local governments, made Kongsberg a municipality. The rural municipalities of Ytre Sandsvær and Øvre Sandsvær were merged into the municipality of Kongsberg in 1964. Kongsberg gradually lost importance to other cities in the 19th century, particularly to the rapidly growing capital of Christiania (Oslo).

The Kongsberg Silver Mines closed in 1958 after operating for 334 years and is today a museum and the city's main tourist attraction. Kongsberg remains the site of the Royal Norwegian Mint (Norwegian: Det Norske Myntverket), which mints Norwegian coins and also produces circulating and collectors' coins for other countries. Kongsberg is also the home of Norway's major defence contractor, Kongsberg Gruppen, founded in 1814. Two of its best-known products were the Kongsberg Colt and the Krag–Jørgensen rifle.

Both the University of South-Eastern Norway Kongsberg campus, and Tinius Olsen's school, a combined technical vocational college and secondary school, are located in Kongsberg.

History Kongsberg was founded by Danish-Norwegian King Christian IV as a mining community in 1624 after the discovery of silver. In its second year, the town of Kongsberg and the Kongsberg Silver Mines began. According to official records, silver was first discovered by the shepherds children Helga Verp and Jacob Grosvold in the summer of 1623. However, the existence of deposits of precious metals was known previously, as evidenced by indications of earlier silver mining. With the rise of silver mining, Kongsberg became the largest industrial centre in Norway before the industrial revolution. At the peak of silver mining in the early eighteenth century, Kongsberg's silver mines and related industries contributed 10% of the Denmark–Norway gross national product.

To develop the Kongsberg Silver Mines, Christian IV hired Germans from the silver mines of Saxony and Harz and brought in Germans from other mines in Norway. The Germans brought their knowledge of mining technology, especially important during the start-up phase. Before 1623, the city was located in the royal territory of Sandsvær.

Four years after the establishment of the Kongsberg Silver Mines, most of the 1,500 workers and officials were still German. Gradually, Norwegians entered the workforce and were hired as supervisors. In 1636, 1,370 Germans and 1,600 Norwegians were employed there. In 1648, there were 1,500 Germans and 2,400 Norwegians working in Kongsberg.

Gunpowder was officially introduced in mining in 1681. Mining in the particularly hard rock of Kongsberg Mountain was energy intensive, so the silver mine continued to develop new technology to reduce production costs. A large artificial dam powered the mine's hoists before electricity was introduced. In 1624, a road from Hokksund to Kongsberg was built to serve the Kongsberg Silver Mines, the most important road built in Norway in the 17th century. In 1665, the road was extended to Kristiansand and Larvik.

By 1683, the mining industry was an important industry of the state. The rapid development of Kongsberg meant that the number of workers in the city had increased significantly by the end of the 17th century. The proportion of Norwegians in the workforce increased, but for a long time, the main staff was dominated by Germans. Kongsberg was almost an outpost of Germany in Norway: the mine had a German name, and the official language was German, only later becoming bilingual (German and Danish). In Kongsberg, the German mountain justice system was also used. Legally, this means that the city was bound by independent regulations, partially separating the mining community from the country's legal system. The Germans brought with them the Knappschaft, a guild-like association of miners that provided including free medical assistance, a pension plan, worker sick leave and a Saturday break. The ring agriculture characteristic of Kongsberg may also have been inspired by the German pattern.

The proceeds from silver mining provided a valuable assistance to the tight finances of Denmark. Denmark–Norway relied heavily on the silver of Kongsberg to support an ongoing war against Sweden. Precious metals also became more and more important in the currency, and to get closer to its source of raw materials, the Royal Mint moved in 1686 from Akershus to Kongsberg. During the Great Northern War in 1716, the city became the main target of Karl XII's foray into Norderhof.

Kongsberg was particularly known for its Kongsberg Silver Mines and their high purity. Kongsberg's ore also contained a certain amount of gold and large amounts of copper, cobalt, lead-zinc and fluorite. Roughly 15,750 tonnes (34,720,000 lb) of silver was extracted between the discovery of the silver ore seams in 1623 and the last year of mining in 1957. The workforce at the Kongsberg silver mine began to increase substantially at the end of the 17th century. In the 1769 census, the mines employed about 4,000 workers. With 8,000 inhabitants in all, the town was the second largest in Norway, after Bergen (and thus larger than today's capital, Oslo).

In Norway's 1749 census, Kongsberg was the most populous town in Eastern Norway. It was granted its royal charter of trade—amounting to official township—in 1802. Following several hard years with reduced silver output from the mines, the war of 1807–1814, and a severe town fire in 1810 where 56 houses on the west side were destroyed, mining was complemented by the government establishing a defense industry in 1814. By 1835, the population had declined to 3,540.

Kongsberg is home to the Royal Norwegian Mint (Norwegian: Det Norske Myntverket), which mints Norwegian coins and also produces circulating and collectors' coins for other countries such as Israel. It was established in 1686, and was renamed from the Royal Norwegian Mint (Norwegian: Den Kongelige Mynt) in 2004 after having been sold to private investors (the Mint of Finland and Norwegian company Samlerhuset) in 2003. Kongsberg is also the site of the Kongsberg School of Mines (Kongsberg Bergseminar), an academic institution for mining technology which operated from 1757 to 1814.

During peaceful times, the defence industry gradually evolved into many other kinds of high tech activities as well, now dominating the town's employment. In 1987, however, the state-owned Kongsberg Weapons Factory (Kongsberg Vaapenfabrikk) suffered a major financial crisis as well as accusations of breaching the CoCom rules by selling sensitive technology to the Soviet bloc. As a result, the company was split into several smaller units and partly sold to private investors. Today, the separate firms thrive as one of Norway's main high-tech industrial clusters, centering on the defence and maritime company Kongsberg Gruppen which is listed on the Oslo Stock Exchange.

On 13 October 2021, a man stabbed multiple people with a bladed weapon, killing five and injuring three. Police subsequently apprehended a suspect whom the Kongsberg police chief later told reporters was a Muslim convert.

Geography Kongsberg is located at the mouth of the valley Numedal; farther to the South the valley is called Lågendalen.

The neighbouring municipalities of Kongsberg are Flesberg to the north; Øvre Eiker and Hof to the east; Lardal, Siljan, and Skien to the south; and Sauherad and Notodden to the west. Of these, the two first lie in Buskerud county like Kongsberg, while Hof and Lardal lie in Vestfold, and the others lie in Telemark. The town is divided by the river Numedalslågen, which has three waterfalls in the town itself.

Transport The main highways are the E134, crossing Kongsberg east to west (and connected to the E18 to Oslo), and Norwegian national road 40 (Riksvei 40), going north to south. The Sørland Line stops at Kongsberg Rail Station, with connection to local and regional bus lines.

Culture With the population increase during the town's silver mining heyday of the mid-eighteenth century came the need for a new church, which was built over a 21-year period and inaugurated in 1761. It has an austere red brick exterior, but a richly decorated baroque interior including unique chandeliers made at Nøstetangen Glass Works in neighbouring Hokksund. Kongsberg Church remains one of the largest in Norway with a seating capacity of 2,400.

The church's original baroque-era pipe organ, made by renowned German organ builder Gottfried Heinrich Gloger in 1760–65, was fully restored by Jürgen Ahrend in 1999–2000 and reopened to great fanfare in January 2001. With its 42 voices, it is the largest baroque organ in Scandinavia. At the end of January each year, the Gloger Music Festival now draws a select crowd of artists and music lovers from all over the world.

Since 1964, Kongsberg has hosted Kongsberg Jazzfestival, an annual international jazz festival. Heavily sponsored by the local industry, prominent world acts such as BB King, Diana Krall, Ornette Coleman, Joshua Redman and John Scofield have played at the festival in recent years.

Sport The town is known for many great ski jumpers. Birger Ruud and his two brothers, as well as many other townsmen, such as Petter Hugsted, won numerous medals in Winter Olympics and other international championships in the 1930s and 1940s. The first ski jumping technique, the Konsberger was developed by Jacob Tullin Thams and Sigmund Ruud in Kongsberg, and was the most popular ski jumping technique from the late 1920s to the late 1950s. Their medals and equipment can be seen at the Kongsberg Skiing Museum (Kongsberg Skimuseum) which is co-located with the Norwegian Mining Museum (Norsk Bergverksmuseum) in central Kongsberg. Inventor of the modern ski binding, Norwegian-American skier and Olympic skiing coach Hjalmar Hvam, was born in Kongsberg in 1902. Recent winter sports athletes of the Kongsberg region include Olympic snowboarders Stine Brun Kjeldaas, Silje Norendal and Halvor Lunn; cross-country ski sprinter Børre Næss of the village Efteløt; and ski jumper Sigurd Pettersen of nearby municipality Rollag (60 km/37 mi north of Kongsberg). A large ski centre for alpine skiing and snowboarding, with several lifts and ca 320 m of height difference has been in operation and gradually expanding since 1965. Kongsberg hosted the cross-country skiing parts of the 2006 Nordic skiing National Championships. The arranging sports club was IL Skrim, the ski tracks being located at Heistadmoen, a former military camp.

The local basketball team Kongsberg Miners is regarded one of the best teams in the country.

The 1978 World Orienteering Championships were held in Kongsberg.

The crowns in Håvet This attraction (Kronene i Håvet) is a site where Norwegian royal monograms have been carved into the mountainside overlooking Kongsberg to mark royal visits to the city. In June 1704 King Frederik IV visited Kongsberg and started a tradition that is still celebrated. King Frederik also arranged for the monograms of visits from earlier monarchs to be recorded as well.

The first monogram on the hillside property belonged to Christian IV who in 1624 founded Kongsberg at the site of the newly discovered silver deposits. His visit was followed by that of Frederik III (1648) and Christian V (1685). Christian VI and his Queen Sofie Magdalene (1733), Frederik V (1749), Oscar I (1845), Oscar II (1890), Haakon VII (1908), Olav V (1962) and most recently Harald V (1995).

Technology Park Kongsberg Technology Park is a part of Kongsberg that is located in Kirkegårdsveien 45 and the Arsenal on Kongsgårdsmoen. It has over 5.200 employees, spread across 60 nationalities and 48 countries and can trace its roots back to 1814. Among the tenants in Kongsberg Technology Park are Kongsberg Gruppen, Kongsberg Defence & Aerospace, GKN Aerospace, Siemens Energy, Kongsberg Terotech, TechnipFMC, Data Respons, and Kongsberg Precision Cutting Systems.

The park also manages properties in Stjørdal, Horten, Sandefjord, Skedsmo, Asker, Bærum, Oslo, Rygge, Kristiansand, Stavanger, Ulsteinvik and Brattvåg.