The
parish of Hjelmeland was established as a municipality on 1 January 1838 (see
formannskapsdistrikt law). In 1859, the large Hjelmeland Municipality was divided into two: the southern portion of the municipality (population: 1,315) was split off to form the new
Aardal Municipality and the remainder of the municipality (population: 3,084) remained as a smaller Hjelmeland Municipality which was also renamed as
Hjelmeland og Fister Municipality. On 1 July 1884, Hjelmeland og Fister Municipality was divided into two municipalities: the western islands and the western coast of the mainland (population: 832) became the new
Fister Municipality and the remaining eastern district of the municipality (population: 2,249) was renamed as simply
Hjelmeland Municipality.
Name The municipality (originally the
parish) is named after the old
Hjelmeland farm () since the first
Hjelmeland Church was built there. Today the farm is a part of the
Hjelmelandsvågen urban area. The first element of the name is the plural
genitive case of which means "
helmet" (likely referring to two hills behind the farm which have the form of two helmets). The last element is which means "land" or "farm".
Coat of arms The
coat of arms was granted on 30 November 1984. The official
blazon is
"Gules, a triple saltire fretty Or" (). This means the arms have a red
field (background) and the
charge is a set of three interwoven
St. Andrew's crosses. The charge has a
tincture of
Or which means it is commonly colored yellow, but if it is made out of metal, then gold is used. They are based on the local tradition of making chairs and other furniture with seats of woven twigs (). The process of weaving is symbolised in the arms. At the same time the arms show the strength and solidarity of the municipality. Furthermore, there are three sets of crosses to represent the fact that Hjelmeland is made up of three previous municipalities (Hjemeland,
Fister, and
Årdal) that were merged in 1965. The arms were designed by Svein Magnus Håvarstein who based the idea from an initial idea by Magnus Torgersen. The municipal flag has the same design as the coat of arms.
Churches The
Church of Norway has three parishes () within Hjelmeland Municipality. It is part of the
Ryfylke prosti (
deanery) in the
Diocese of Stavanger. ==Geography==