The municipality of Valsøyfjord was established on 1 January 1894 when the larger Aure Municipality was divided into two municipalities: Aure (population: 3,245) in the north and Valsøyfjord (population: 942) in the south. During the 1960s, there were many municipal mergers across Norway due to the work of the Schei Committee. On 1 January 1965, Valsøyfjord municipality was abolished and its land was divided between two neighboring municipalities. The parts of Valsøyfjord on the island of Ertvågøya (population: 141) was merged with Aure Municipality and the rest of Valsøyfjord (population: 1,104) was merged with Halsa Municipality.[4]
Name
The municipality (originally the parish) is named after the local Valsøyfjorden (Old Norse: Vallangr). The fjord is named after the island of Valsøya (Old Norse: Vallangsøy) which is located in the mouth of the fjord. The first element of both names comes from vǫllr which means "meadow" or "flat ground". The last element of the island's name is øy which means "island". The last element of the old fjord name is angr which means "fjord". Thus, Valsøyfjord means something like the "meadow island fjord".[5] Historically, the name of the municipality was spelled Valsøfjorden. On 3 November 1917, a royal resolution changed the spelling of the name of the municipality to Valsøyfjord, adding a "y" and removing the definite form ending -en.[6]
The municipal council(Herredsstyre) of Valsøyfjord was made up of 17 representatives that were elected to four year terms. The party breakdown of the final municipal council was as follows: