The parish of
Evje og Vegusdal was established as a municipality on 1 January 1838 (see
formannskapsdistrikt law). According to the 1835 census the municipality had a population of 1,627. On 1 January 1877, Evje og Vegusdal was divided to create two separate municipalities:
Evje with a population of 870 and
Vegusdal with a population of 935. These two municipalities later became parts of
Evje og Hornnes and
Birkenes respectively.
Name The parishes of
Evje and
Vegusdal were merged in 1838 and the new, resulting municipality was given the compound name
Evje og Vegusdal, literally meaning "Evje and Vegusdal". The parish of Evje is named after the old
Evje farm () since the first
Evje Church was built there. The name is identical to the word which means "
backwater" or "mud" (likely referring to a shallow, backwater part of the local river
Otra). The parish of Vegusdal is named after the old
Vegusdal farm () since the first
Vegusdal Church was built there. The first element is derived from the old male name,
Veikolfr. The male name itself was a compound name with the first component
Veik- coming from which means "weak" and the second component
-olfr was a variant form of the more common male name
Úlfr (also spelled
Ulfr, from Old Norse
úlfr, "wolf"; cf. Icelandic
Úlfur and Faroese ). The last element of the name is which means "
valley" or "dale". Thus this is the "valley of
Weak-Ulfr (or
Weak-Wolf)". ==Government==