Kvinesdal is an elongated mountain-to-coast municipality, reaching saltwater at the head of the Fedafjorden, which provides access to the North Sea in the south.

[5][6] Kvinesdal belongs to a central area in the Norwegian south from which many people emigrated to North America, particularly the United States, from the 1850s until the 1950s.

The official blazon is "Azure a pall engrailed argent" (Norwegian: I blått et sølv gaffelkors dannet ved taggesnitt).

This means the arms have a blue field (background) and the charge is a Y-shaped figure called a pall with edges that are engrailed.

The pall 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 blue color in the field and the pall design was chosen to symbolize the meeting of the two local rivers: Kvina and Litleåna which join at the village of Liknes and then flow south together to the Fedafjorden.

The arms were designed by Truls Nygaard who developed it using ideas by Hans Freddy Larsen and Lars Olsen.

The long, narrow municipality of Kvinesdal stretches from the mountains in the north, along the Kvinesdalen valley to the Fedafjorden in the south.

Every year, the municipality hosts a special festival remembering the days when local people emigrated to the new world.

In northern Kvinesdal, along the high plateau which sits at 550 metres (1,800 ft) above sea level, records show that the Salmeli Farm dates back at least to the year 1300.

The bailiff Stig Bagge, who was granted local leadership from 1536 to 1542 by king Christian III, was an energetic man when he lived at his ancestral home of Eikeland in Kvinesdal.

When the bailiff in Nedenes was killed in his bed and rebels came in an unsuccessful attempt to capture and execute Stig, he collected his men and brutally stifled the revolt.

Stig himself died by being drawn and quartered by the Dutch when he was caught in piracy or espionage off their coast at Walcheren.

The municipal council (Kommunestyre) of Kvinesdal is made up of 27 representatives that are elected to four year terms.