Øvre Sirdal is a former municipality that was located in the old Vest-Agder county in Norway. The 1,156-square-kilometre (446 sq mi) municipality[3] existed from 1905 until its dissolution in 1960. It was located in the northern part of the present-day municipality of Sirdal in Agder county. The administrative centre was the village of Lunde where Lunde Church is located.
History
The municipality of Øvre Sirdal was established on 1 January 1905 when the old Sirdal formannskapsdistrikt was split into two municipalities: Øvre Sirdal (population: 753) and Tonstad. During the 1960s, there were many municipal mergers across Norway due to the work of the Schei Committee. On 1 January 1960, Øvre Sirdal (population: 549) was merged with the neighboring municipality of Tonstad (population: 651) and the Øksendal area of the municipality of Bakke (population: 226) to form a new municipality of Sirdal.[4]
Name
The municipality (originally the parish) is named after the Sirdalen valley (Old Norse: Sírudalr) since the valley runs through the municipality. The prefix øvre means "upper" (since this was created from the upper part of the old Sirdal municipality). The first element of the name is the genitive case of the river name Síra (now the Sira river). The river name has an unknown meaning, but it could be something like "strong stream". The last element is dalr which means "valley" or "dale".[5] Historically, the name of the municipality was spelled Øvre Sirdalen. On 3 November 1917, a royal resolution changed the spelling of the name of the municipality to Øvre Sirdal, removing the definite form ending -en.[6]
The municipal council(Herredsstyre) of Øvre Sirdal was made up of representatives that were elected to four year terms. The tables below show the historical composition of the council by political party.
^Helland, Amund (1903). "Siredalen herred". X Lister og Mandals amt. Anden del. Norges land og folk (in Norwegian). Kristiania, Norway: H. Aschehoug & Company. p. 629. Retrieved 4 July 2022.