The parish of Sygne was established as a municipality on 1 January 1838. on 1 July 1913, the northern half of Søgne was separated to form the new municipality of Greipstad. This left Søgne with 2,609 residents. During the 1960s, there were many municipal mergers across Norway due to the work of the Schei Committee. Søgne municipality remained generally the same during this time, however, there were a couple of small changes to the municipal boundaries. On 1 January 1964, the Stubstad area of neighboring Holum municipality and the Brunvatne area of neighboring Øyslebø municipality were both transferred to Søgne municipality. Then on 1 January 1965, the unpopulated Svalemyren area of neighboring Mandal municipality was transferred to Søgne. On 1 January 2020, the three neighboring municipalities of Kristiansand, Songdalen, and Søgne will be merged to form one large municipality called Kristiansand.
Name
The municipality is named after the old Søgne farm, since the Old Søgne Church was built there. The farm is named after the riverSygna and the name of the river is derived from the verb súga which means "suck". The municipality was historically spelled Sygne until the late 1800s.
Coat-of-arms
The coat-of-arms is from modern times; they were granted on 24 May 1985. The blue and silver/white arms show two stone road signs, which in historical times were used to mark the paths and tracks. Two of the largest of these signs are found in the municipality, and were mentioned in historical records in the early 17th century. According to legend, they were already built by King Olaf II of Norway , in the 11th century.
The municipal council of Søgne is made up of 27 representatives that are elected to four year terms. Currently, the party breakdown is as follows:
Media
The newspaper Søgne og Songdalen Budstikke has been published in Søgne since 1999.
Geography
Søgne is a small, coastal municipality, with a long stretch of coastline and islands to the south. To the east, it borders the municipality of Kristiansand, to the north and northeast it borders the municipalities of Marnardal and Songdalen, and to the west it borders the municipality of Mandal. The municipality has a couple main rivers running through it: Lundeelva and Søgneelva. The Trysfjorden cuts into the shoreline in the west part of the municipality. There are also many islands to the south of the mainland. Ny-Hellesund is a small cluster of three populated islands that were an important outport in the history of Søgne. The Songvår Lighthouse is located in the far south part of the municipality on the small island of Hellersøya.
