Kristiansund (formerly "Christianssund") is a city and municipality on the western coast of Norway, in the Nordm�re district of M�re og Romsdalcounty. It was officially awarded township status in 1742, and it is still the major town for the region. The administrative center of the municipality is the city of Kristiansund. Other villages in the municipality include Kvalv�g, Rensvik, and Frei.
The municipality of Kristiansund was established on 1 January 1838 (see formannskapsdistrikt). On 1 January 1964, the island municipality of Grip (population: 104) and the Dale area on Nordlandet island (population: 963) were merged into Kristiansund. The island and municipality of Frei was merged with Kristiansund on 1 January 2008.
The Coat-of-arms is from 1742. It shows a waterfall because the old name of the town (Fosen) was misinterpreted as Fossund (as a compound of foss which means waterfall and sund which means strait). There are, however, no waterfalls in the municipality.
Another myth concerning the coat-of-arms is that there was a mix up, between Kristiansund's and Molde's intended shield. The Dano-Norwegian government officials in charge of the giving of the coats, had a party to remember the momentous occasion and became too drunk and hungover to remember which was which, and so Molde got the coat with a whale (which are scarce in between the Romsdal fjords) and Kristiansund got the waterfall (since Molde is on the mainland and Kristiansund lies in the open sea, it would be more likely that the waterfall was intended for Molde's mountains and the whales for Kristiansund
