Dypvåg is a former municipality in the old Aust-Agdercounty, Norway. The 15-square-kilometre (5.8 sq mi) municipality existed from 1838 until its dissolution in 1960 when it was merged into the present-day municipality of Tvedestrand which is in Agder county. The small municipality included the coastal area about 8 kilometres (5.0 mi) east of the town of Tvedestrand and several islands located just offshore. The administrative centre was the village of Dypvåg where the Dypvåg Church is located.[4]
History
The parish of Dybvaag (later spelled "Dypvåg") was established as a civil municipality on 1 January 1838 (see formannskapsdistrikt law). On 1 January 1881, a part of the municipality of Holt (population: 52) was transferred to Dypvåg. Then later, on 1 January 1887, an uninhabited part of neighboring Søndeled municipality was transferred to Dypvåg. On 1 January 1902, the western half of Dypvåg (population: 1,892) was separated from the rest of Dypvåg (population: 3,235) to form the new municipality of Flosta.[5]
During the 1960s, there were many municipal mergers across Norway due to the work of the Schei Committee. On 1 January 1960, the municipality of Dypvåg (population: 1,805) was merged with the neighboring municipality of Holt and the town of Tvedestrand to form a new, enlarged municipality of Tvedestrand which had a population of 6,432.[5]
Name
The municipality (originally the parish) is named after the old Dybvaag farm (Old Norse: Djúpvágr or Djúpivágr) since the first Dypvåg Church was built there. The first element comes from the word djúpr which means "deep". The last element is vágr which means "inlet" or "bay".[6]
Historically, the name of the municipality was spelled Dybvaag. On 3 November 1917, a royal resolution changed the spelling of the name of the municipality to Dyvaag.[7] On 21 December 1917, a royal resolution enacted the 1917 Norwegian language reforms. Prior to this change, the name was spelled Dyvaag with the digraph "aa", and after this reform, the name was spelled Dyvåg, using the letter å instead.[8][9] On 22 January 1932, a royal resolution changed the spelling of the name of the municipality to Dypvåg.[10]
The municipal council(Herredsstyre) of Dypvåg was made up of 21 representatives that were elected to four year terms. The tables below show the historical composition of the council by political party.