Grong

(Kråangke) is a municipality in Trøndelag county, Norway. It is part of the Namdalen region. The administrative centre of the municipality is the village of Medjå (sometimes called Grong also). Other villages in the municipality include Bergsmoen, Formofoss, Gartland, and Harran. The municipality is the 96th largest by area out of the 356 municipalities in Norway. Grong is the 263rd most populous municipality in Norway with a population of 2,287. The municipality's population density is and its population has decreased by 5.1% over the previous 10-year period. Grong was established as a municipality on 1 January 1838 (see formannskapsdistrikt law). On 1 January 1901, the northwestern district of Grong (population: 1,046) was separated to form the new municipality of Høylandet. On 1 January 1923, the large municipality of Grong was divided into four smaller municipalities: Grong (population: 1,272) in the southwest, Harran (population: 630) in the centre, Røyrvik (population: 392) in the northeast, and Namsskogan (population: 469) in the northwest. During the 1960s, there were many municipal mergers across Norway due to the work of the Schei Committee. On 1 January 1964, the neighboring municipalities of Harran (population: 1,085) and Grong (population: 1,962) were merged (back together) to form a new municipality called Grong. On 1 January 2018, the municipality switched from the old Nord-Trøndelag county to the new Trøndelag county. The municipality (originally the parish) is named after the old Grong farm (Granungar) since the first Grong Church was built there. The first element is grǫn which means "spruce". The last element is the plural form of the suffix -ungr which is a common suffix for place names in Norway. The coat of arms was granted on 6 February 1987. The official blazon is "Argent, three triangles vert in pale" (I sølv tre grønne trekanter, 1-1-1). This means the arms have a field (background) that has a tincture of argent which means it is commonly colored white, but if it is made out of metal, then silver is used.