Vinje

Vinje is a municipality in Vestfold og Telemark county, Norway. It is located in the traditional district of Vest-Telemark which is part of Øvre Telemark. The administrative centre of the municipality is the village of Åmot. Other villages in the municipality include Arabygdi, Edland, Grunge, Haukeli, Krossen, Møsstrond, Nesland, Øyfjell, Raulandsgrend, and Vinje. The municipality is the 14th largest by area out of the 356 municipalities in Norway. Vinje is the 209th most populous municipality in Norway with a population of 3,755. The municipality's population density is and its population has increased by 1.5% over the previous 10-year period. The parish of Vinje was established as a municipality on 1 January 1838 (see formannskapsdistrikt law). In 1860, the northern district of Vinje (population: 745) and the Øyfjell area of Lårdal (population: 243) were combined to form the new municipality of Rauland. During the 1960s, there were many municipal mergers across Norway due to the work of the Schei Committee. On 1 January 1964, Rauland municipality (population: 1,656) and Vinje municipality (population: 2,565) were merged to form a new, larger Vinje municipality. The municipality (originally the parish) is named after the old Vinje farm (Vinjar) since the first Vinje Church was built there. The name is the plural form of the word vin which means "meadow" or "pasture". Vinje, Sør-Trøndelag#Name The coat of arms was granted on 16 November 1990. The official blazon is "Azure a billy goat argent" (På blå grunn ein sølv geitebukk). This means the arms have a blue field (background) and the charge is a billy goat. The billy goat has a tincture of argent which means it is commonly colored white, but if it is made out of metal, then silver is used. The color blue and the goat were chosen based on an old poem written by Aasmund Olavsson Vinje. The poem is called Blåmann (blue man) which is about a goat named Blåmann. This was also chosen to represent the importance of sheep and goat farming in the mountainous municipality.