Ringsaker

Ringsaker kommune
Municipality
Lake Mjøsa in Ringsaker
Coat of arms Hedmark within Norway
Ringsaker within Hedmark
Coordinates: 61°1′27″N 10°48′7″E / 61.02417°N 10.80194°E / 61.02417; 10.80194Coordinates: 61°1′27″N 10°48′7″E / 61.02417°N 10.80194°E / 61.02417; 10.80194
Country	Norway
County	Hedmark
District	Hedmarken
Administrative centre	Brumunddal
Government
• Mayor (2007)	Anita Ihle Steen (Ap)
Area
• Total	1,281 km2 (495 sq mi)
• Land	1,123 km2 (434 sq mi)
Area rank	72 in Norway
Population (2004)
• Total	31,732
• Rank	23 in Norway
• Density	28/km2 (70/sq mi)
• Change (10 years)	1.2 %
Demonym(s)	Ringsaksokning
Time zone	CET (UTC+1)
• Summer (DST)	CEST (UTC+2)
ISO 3166 code	NO-0412
Official language form	Bokmål
Website	www.ringsaker.kommune.no
Data from Statistics Norway

 Ringsaker  is a municipality in Hedmark county, Norway. It is part of the traditional region of Hedmarken. The administrative centre of the municipality is the city of Brumunddal.

The municipality of Ringsaker was established on 1 January 1838 (see formannskapsdistrikt). The municipalities of Furnes and Nes were merged with Ringsaker on 1 January 1964.

The municipality (originally the parish) is named after the old Ringsaker farm (Old Norse: Ringisakr), since the first church was built there. The first element is the genitive case of ringir or ringi, of unknown meaning. One proposal is that Ringir or Hringir ("Lord of the Ring") may have been an epithet or alias for the Norse god Ullr, based on a ceremony mentioned in the poem Atlakviða where an oath is sworn by hringi Ullar ("the ring of Ullr").

The last element is akr, meaning "acre" or any "field" generally.

The coat-of-arms is from modern times. They were granted on 1 February 1985. The arms show a silver elk on a red background. The elk in the arms is taken from pre-historic cave paintings found at the Stein farm in Ringsaker, indicating the early inhabitation of the area. They were designed by Arne Løvstad.