Rissa is a municipality in the county of Sør-Trøndelag, Norway.

Rissa was separated from Stadsbygd in 1860. Lensvik was separated from Rissa January 1, 1905. Most of Stadsbygd, and a part of Stjørna, were merged with Rissa January 1964.

The name

The Old Norse form of the name was Rissi. This was probably the old name of the brackish basin Botnen (literally 'the bottom' of the fjord). Even though this is a heavily land-locked fjord with a river-like inlet from the Trondheimsfjord (and was probably a shallow bay in prehistoric times). The name is probably derived from the verb rísa 'raise, rise'. (The average water level of Botnen is today about 1.7 meters above mean sea level, and the surface water is almost fresh from accumulated internal runoff.)

Coat-of-arms

The coat-of-arms is from modern times (1987) - but it has old roots: It shows the crown of Skule Bårdsson, as it is depicted on an old tombstone from Nidarosdomen. Skule was the founder of Rein kloster, which lies in the municipality.

History

In April 1978, Rissa was home to a quick clay landslide which encompassed an area of 330,000 square meters and sent 6 million cubic meters of clay from the Rissa settlement on the shore into Botnen , causing a miniature tsunami on the north shore in Leira. This slide is particularly famous because a large portion of the slide happened to be recorded on film by two amateur photographers. More information on Rissa Landslide.