The
parish of Lille Topdal was a part of the municipality of
Åmli when civil municipalities were created in Norway on 1 January 1838 (see
formannskapsdistrikt law). The municipality of Lille Topdal was established on 1 January 1908 when the municipality of Åmli was split into three separate municipalities: Lille Topdal (population: 389),
Gjevedal (population: 590), and Åmli (population: 2,024). In 1922, the name of the municipality was changed from
Lille Topdal to
Tovdal. During the 1960s, there were many municipal mergers across Norway due to the work of the
Schei Committee. On 1 January 1967, Tovdal (population: 161) was merged back into the municipality of Åmli. At the time of its dissolution, Tovdal was the smallest municipality in Norway by population.
Name The municipality (originally the
parish) was first named "Lille Topdal" after the Topdalen valley (). The first element comes from the old name for the local river
Tovdalselva. That name is likely derived from the word which means "mound" or "tuft". The last element is which means "
valley" or "dale". The prefix of the name is which means "little". Historically, the name of the municipality was
Lille Topdal. On 3 November 1917, a
royal resolution changed the spelling of the name of the municipality to simply
Tovdal, dropping the prefix
lille and changing the
p to a
v. ==Government==