CACrown ArchivesThe cinema collection
Menu
Research dossier · People & Ideas

Gunnar Birgisson

Icelandic politician (1947–2021)

Correspondence, annotated notebooks and portrait silhouettes prepared for research
People and ideasInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionJun 29, 2024
Entity authorityQ5618946 ↗
Source-derived summary

Gunnar Ingi Birgisson (30 September 1947 – 14 June 2021) was an Icelandic politician. Birgir was a member of Alþingi and a mayor of Kópavogur and Fjallabyggð. He coined the saying "Það er gott að búa í Kópavogi" ("It's good to live in Kópavogur"), which is now regarded as the unofficial motto of Kópavogur. He held a doctorate in engineering from the University of Missouri. His doctoral essay about how lava fields performed as foundations. His maternal half brother, Kristinn Halldór Gunnarsson, was also a prominent politician.

References

"Gunnar Birgisson (Gunnar Ingi) - Government profile" (in Icelandic). Retrieved 25 January 2011.

"Gunnar Birgisson taking over mayorship of Fjallabyggð" (in Icelandic). Archived from the original on 31 January 2015.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Gunnar Birgisson” is icelandic politician (1947–2021). The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Gunnar, Birgisson and Icelandic, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewStrongest as a route into the people, institutions and dated events that shaped the subject’s public record. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1947, 2021, 2011, 2015—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1947-09-30. For this dossier, Gunnar, Birgisson and Icelandic is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “icelandic politician (1947–2021)” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 29, 2024. The linked authority identifier is Q5618946. VIAF identifies the subject as 247152138584210980649. 1 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1947, 2021, 2011 and 2015.

Critical limits

Public reputation and documentary evidence do not always develop together; absence from a summary is not evidence of historical absence. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.

Best used for
  • Establishing names and roles
  • Building a first chronology
  • Locating cited institutions
Verify next

Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Gunnar Birgisson”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Gunnar Birgisson primary sources, Gunnar Birgisson archive and Gunnar research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Gunnar Birgisson”?
  2. How has the subject’s reputation changed across later accounts?
  3. Which primary records establish identity, chronology and institutional ties?
Subject index

Search terms from this dossier

Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Gunnar Birgisson” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.