Vestre Moland is a former municipality in the old Aust-Agder

county A county is a geographic region of a country used for administrative or other purposes Chambers Dictionary, L. Brookes (ed.), 2005, Chambers Harrap Publishers Ltd, Edinburgh in certain modern nations. The term is derived from the Old French ...

Norway Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe, the mainland territory of which comprises the western and northernmost portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and the ...

. The administrative centre of the municipality was the village of Møglestu where the Vestre Moland Church is located. The municipality existed from 1838 until 1962 when it was merged into the municipality of

Lillesand Lillesand () is List of municipalities of Norway, municipality in Agder counties of Norway, county, Norway. It is part of the Districts of Norway, traditional district of Southern Norway, Sørlandet. The administrative center of the municipality ...

. Today, the area of Vestre Moland covers the northern part of the present-day municipality of

Agder Agder is a county (''fylke'') and traditional region in the southern part of Norway. The county was established on 1 January 2020, when the old Vest-Agder and Aust-Agder counties were merged. Since the early 1900s, the term Sørlandet ("south ...

county. Vestre Moland included the island of Justøy and the area surrounding the ladested of

. The lake Østre Grimevann is in the northern part of Vestre Moland and the

Blindleia Blindleia is an long inland waterway in the municipality of Lillesand in Agder county, Norway. The strait starts in the ''Gamle Hellesund'' or ''Ulvøysund'' areas in southern Høvåg in the southwest (near Kristiansand) and it continues northe ...

inland waterway is located along the coast of Vestre Moland.

History

The municipality (originally the

parish A parish is a territorial entity in many Christian denominations, constituting a division within a diocese. A parish is under the pastoral care and clerical jurisdiction of a priest, often termed a parish priest, who might be assisted by one o ...

) of Vestre Moland was established on 1 January 1838 (see formannskapsdistrikt law). In 1865, the municipality was divided into the two separate municipalities of Vestre Moland (population: 2,167) in the north and Høvåg (population: 2,069) in the south. During the 1960s, there were many municipal mergers across Norway due to the work of the

Schei Committee The Schei Committee ( no, Schei-komitéen) was a committee named by the Government of Norway to look into the organization of municipalities in Norway post-World War II. It convened in 1946, and its formal name was (The 1946 Committee on Municip ...

. On 1 January 1962, Vestre Moland (population: 2,454) was merged with the municipality of Høvåg, the ladested of

, and the Gitmark farm area in the municipality of

Eide Parallel ATA (PATA), originally , also known as IDE, is a standard interface designed for IBM PC-compatible computers. It was first developed by Western Digital and Compaq in 1986 for compatible hard drives and CD or DVD drives. The connection ...

to form a new, enlarged Lillesand municipality.

Name

The name comes from

Old Norse Old Norse, Old Nordic, or Old Scandinavian, is a stage of development of North Germanic dialects before their final divergence into separate Nordic languages. Old Norse was spoken by inhabitants of Scandinavia and their overseas settlemen ...

word which is derived from the

river A river is a natural flowing watercourse, usually freshwater, flowing towards an ocean, sea, lake or another river. In some cases, a river flows into the ground and becomes dry at the end of its course without reaching another body of w ...

name , which can be linked with the Old Norse word which means "brave". The word ''Vestre'' means "western" (to distinguish itself from

Austre Moland Austre Moland (historic: ''Østre Moland'') is a former municipality in the old Aust-Agder county in Norway. The roughly municipality existed from 1838 until 1962 when it was merged with several neighboring municipalities to form the new municip ...

which is located further east in present-day Arendal).

Government

The

municipal council A municipal council is the legislative body of a municipality or local government area. Depending on the location and classification of the municipality it may be known as a city council, town council, town board, community council, rural counc ...

of Vestre Moland was made up of 21 representatives that were elected to four year terms. The

party A party is a gathering of people who have been invited by a host for the purposes of socializing, conversation, recreation, or as part of a festival or other commemoration or celebration of a special occasion. A party will often featur ...

breakdown of the final municipal council was as follows:

References

{{use dmy dates, date=December 2020 Lillesand Former municipalities of Norway 1838 establishments in Norway 1962 disestablishments in Norway

History

Name

Government

See also

References