Sel

Sel is a municipality in Innlandet county, Norway. It is located in the traditional district of Gudbrandsdal. The administrative centre of the municipality is the town of Otta. The municipality also includes several notable villages including Bjølstad, Dale, Høvringen, Nord-Sel, Sandbumoen, Sjoa, and Skogbygda. The municipality is the 130th largest by area out of the 356 municipalities in Norway. Sel is the 172nd most populous municipality in Norway with a population of 5,531. The municipality's population density is and its population has decreased by 7.7% over the previous 10-year period. The new municipality of Sel was established on 1 January 1908 when Vågå Municipality was divided into three. The northeastern part became the new Sel Municipality (population: 2,287), the southeastern part became the new Heidal Municipality (population: 1,241) and the western part continued as Vågå Municipality (population: 2,953). During the 1960s, there were many municipal mergers across Norway due to the work of the Schei Committee. On 1 January 1965, the municipality of Heidal (population: 1,731) was dissolved and it was merged with the neighboring municipality of Sel (population: 3,687) along with the Tolstadåsen area of Vågå Municipality (population: 35) and the Sjoa area of Nord-Fron Municipality (population: 413) to form a new, larger Sel Municipality. The municipality (originally the parish) is named after the old Sel farm (Sil) since the first Sel Church was built there. This farm is located in the present-day village of Nord-Sel. The name is identical with the word sil which means "slowly running and quiet part of a river" (here meaning the Gudbrandsdalslågen river). The coat of arms was approved on 18 May 1985, but it was never approved by a royal decree because it did not meet the strict rules for coats of arms at that time. The blazon is "Azure, a girl playing a trumpet Or". This means the arms have a blue field (background) and the charge is a girl playing a trumpet.