The municipality (originally the parish) is named after the old Modum farm (Old Norse: Móðheimr), since the first church was built here. The first element is móða which means "river" (here the Drammenselva river) and the last element is heimr which means "home", "homestead", or "farm". The name of the farm was later changed to Buskerud.
The coat-of-arms is from modern times. They were granted on 15 March 1985. The arms show three wavy silver lines “party per bend sinister” on a blue background. They represent the three main rivers in the municipality: Drammenselva, Snarumselva, and Simoa and the colour blue represents Blaafarveværket.1
The municipality is bordered in the north by Krødsherad and Ringerike, in the east by Hole and Lier, in the south by Øvre Eiker, and in the west by Sigdal.
Further information: Breiliflaka
The municipality has three main villages: Åmot, Geithus, and Vikersund.
Åmot is the starting point of Kunstnerdalen, which was frequently visited by of several Norwegian 19th and 19th century painters: Christian Krohg, Adolph Tidemand and Hans Gude. It also was home to Theodor Kittelsen and Christian Skredsvig. Edvard Munch also painted in Modum. This is also the site of Blaafarveværket whichnow includes a museum and art gallery.3
Geithus is the location of two hydroelectric powerplants; Geithusfoss kraftverk and Gravfoss kraftverk.4
Vikersund is the municipality administrative center of Modum and the site of the Modum City Hall. It is also the site of Vikersundbakken.
The following cities are twinned with Modum:5
Norske Kommunevåpen (1990). "Nye kommunevåbener i Norden". Retrieved 2009-01-10. http://www.ngw.nl/int/nor/m/modum.htm ↩
"Immigrants and Norwegian-born to immigrant parents". ssb.no. Archived from the original on 2 July 2015. Retrieved 29 July 2017. https://web.archive.org/web/20150702101705/https://www.ssb.no/statistikkbanken/selectvarval/Define.asp?subjectcode=&ProductId=&MainTable=FolkInnvkatLand&nvl=&PLanguage=1&nyTmpVar=true&CMSSubjectArea=befolkning&KortNavnWeb=innvbef&StatVariant=&checked=true ↩
"Kunstnerdalen". gonorway.com. Retrieved January 1, 2018. http://www.gonorway.com/go/kunstnerdalen.html ↩
Geir Thorsnæs. "Geithus". Store norske leksikon. Retrieved January 1, 2018. https://snl.no/Geithus ↩
"Nordiske vennskapskommuner" (in Norwegian). Modum kommune. Archived from the original on 2012-02-20. Retrieved 2009-01-10. https://web.archive.org/web/20120220013854/http://www.modum.kommune.no/nordiske-vennskapskommuner.106516.no.html ↩