Country Norway County Vest-Agder Municipality ID NO-1025 Area 130 km² | Region Southern Norway District Sørlandet Adm. Center Byremo | |
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Weather 7°C, Wind NW at 11 km/h, 60% Humidity | ||
Grindheim is a former municipality in Vest-Agder county, Norway. The administrative centre was the village of Byremo where Grindheim Church is located. The 130-square-kilometre (50 sq mi) municipality was generally located in the northern half of the present-day municipality of Audnedal.
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History
The municipality of Grindum was established on 1 January 1902 when the old municipality of Bjelland og Grindum was divided into two separate municipalities: Grindheim (population: 909) and Bjelland (population: 907).
During the 1960s, there were many municipal mergers across Norway due to the work of the Schei Committee. On 1 January 1964, Grindheim (population: 701) was merged with the Ågedal and Midtbø areas (located just east of the lake Ytre Øydnavatnet; population: 96) in Bjelland and the neighboring municipality of Konsmo (population: 712) to create the new municipality of Audnedal.
Name
The municipality (originally the parish) was named after the old Grindheim farm (Old Norse: Grindheimr), since the first Grindheim Church was built there. The first element is grind which means "gate" or "wicket" (or possibly grind which means "sand" or "gravel") and the last element is heimr which means "home", "homestead", or "farm".
Prior to 1889, the name was written as Grindem. Then from 1889-1917, the spelling was changed to Grindum. Then again in 1918, the spelling was changed to its present form: Grindheim.