The parish of
Herred was established as a municipality on 1 January 1838 (see
formannskapsdistrikt law). On 17 October 1893, the southern district of Herad was separated to create the new municipality of
Spind. The split left Herad with 1,019 inhabitants. During the 1960s, there were many municipal mergers across Norway due to the work of the
Schei Committee. On 1 January 1965, Herad (population: 359) was merged with the municipalities of
Spind (population: 606),
Lista (population: 4,544), and the town of
Farsund (population: 2,208) to form the new, larger municipality of
Farsund.
Name The municipality (originally the
parish) is named
Herred () since the first
Herad Church was built there. The name is identical to the word which means "
village" or "
hamlet". It was also a name that was used for all municipalities in Norway during the 1800s and early 1900s. Thus the name was
Herred herred (). ==Government==