Kongsberg
Kongsberg (lit. The King's Mountain) is a town in the county of Buskerud, Norway. It has 22,657 inhabitants as of January 1, 2002, its bicentennial. Including the surrounding rural districts, the administrative area is 792 km². The town was founded in 1624 under the name Konings Bierg by Danish/Norwegian king Christian IV as a mining community (see below), and was granted its royal charter of trade, thus making it a proper town, in 1802.
Kongsberg is particularly known for its old silver mines, from which roughly 1350 metric tons of silver was extracted between the discovery of silver ore in 1623, and the last year of mining, in 1957. In 1814, following a year of famine, mining was complemented by defence industry, the latter gradually evolving into many other kinds of high-tech activities as well, and dominating the town's employment (see Kongsberg Gruppen).
