Fjotland (municipality)


Fjotland is a former municipality in Vest-Agder county, Norway. The municipality existed from 1838 until 1841 and again from 1858 until its dissolution in 1963. The administrative centre was the village of Fjotland where Fjotland Church is located. The municipality covered the northern part of the Kvinesdalen valley in the present-day municipality of Kvinesdal.

History

The parish of Fjotland was established as a municipality on 1 January 1838, but the municipality was short-lived. In 1841, Fjotland was merged into the neighboring municipality of Kvinesdal. This union, however, only lasted until 1858 when Fjotland was separated to form its own municipality again. At that time, Fjotland had a population of 1,044.
On 1 January 1874, an unpopulated area of Fjotland was transferred to neighboring Sirdal municipality. On 1 January 1903, a small area of Sirdal was transferred to Fjotland. During the 1960s, many Norwegian municipalities were consolidated due to the work of the Schei Committee. On 1 January 1963, Fjotland was dissolved and it was merged with Kvinesdal and Feda municipality to form a new, larger municipality of Kvinesdal.

Name

The name of the municipality comes from the old Fjotland farm. The first element in the name comes from the word fjøs which means "barn" and the last element in the name comes from the word land which means "land".