Grue, Norway

Grue kommune

County	Hedmark
District	Solør
Municipality	NO-0423
Administrative centre	Kirkenær
Mayor (2007)	Herdis Bragelien (Ap)
Official language form	Bokmål
Area  - Total  - Land  - Percentage	Ranked 131 837 km² 777 km² 0.26 %
Population  - Total (2004)  - Percentage  - Change (10 years)  - Density	Ranked 183 5,312 0.12 % -7.0 % 7/km²
Demonym	Grusokning[1]
Coordinates	60°27′N 12°12′E / 60.45, 12.2Coordinates: 60°27′N 12°12′E / 60.45, 12.2
www.grue.kommune.no Data from Statistics Norway

Grue is a municipality in the county of Hedmark, Norway. Grue was established as a municipality January 1, 1838 (see formannskapsdistrikt). Brandval was separated from Grue in 1867. Grue is situated around the river Glomma and the geography is dominated largely by forests and some agricultural areas around Glomma. Kirkenær (population 1200) is the administrative center of Grue. Grue is bordered on the south by the municipality of Kongsvinger, on the north by the municipality of Åsnes, and on the west by Nord-Odal. To the east it borders Sweden. Grue was the early center for the Finnish migration which today populates the Finnskogen, a belt about 32 km (20 miles) wide and running continuously along the frontier in the districts of Brandval, Grue, Hof, Åsnes, and Våler. Their first population center in Norway was located around the lake of Røgden.

The name

The municipality (originally the parish) is named after the old farm Grue (Norse Grof(a)), since the first church was built there. The name is identical with the word grof(a) f 'depression, hollow'.

Coat-of-arms

The coat-of-arms is from modern times (1992). The flamelike line represent the clearance of farms in the woods by the use of fire - and it also is a remembrance of the gruesome church fire of 1822.

References