Holtålen

Holtålen is a municipality in Trøndelag county, Norway. It is part of the Gauldalen region. The administrative centre of the municipality is located in the Ålen area of the village of Renbygda. Other villages in the municipality include Hessdalen, Aunegrenda, and Haltdalen. The municipality is the 89th largest by area out of the 356 municipalities in Norway. Holtålen is the 283rd most populous municipality in Norway with a population of 1,953. The municipality's population density is and its population has decreased by 3% over the previous 10-year period. The municipality of Holtaalen was established on 1 January 1838 (see formannskapsdistrikt law). In 1841, the western part of the municipality was separated to become the municipality of Singsaas. This left Holtaalen with 1,885 residents. Then in 1855, the southeastern part of Holtaalen was separated to become the municipality of Aalen, leaving Holtaalen with 809 residents. The spelling of the name was changed to Holtålen in 1921. In 1937, the name was changed from Holtålen to Haltdalen. On 1 January 1972, the municipality of Haltdalen was merged with the neighboring municipality of Ålen to form the new (present-day) municipality of Holtålen (resurrecting an old name for the area as the name of the new municipality). Prior to the merger, Haltdalen had 778 residents. On 21 April 1989, a small unpopulated part of the neighboring municipality of Røros was transferred to Holtålen. On 1 January 2018, the municipality switched from the old Sør-Trøndelag county to the new Trøndelag county. The municipality (originally the parish) is named after the local valley (Holtdalr and later Holtáll). The first element is Holt is the old name for the local river Holda. The last element is dalr which means "valley" or "dale". Later, around the year 1400, the suffix changed to áll which means "ditch" or "gully" (ålen is the modern definite form of this word). Historically, the spelling was Holtaalen, and in the 20th century the spelling was changed to the current Holtålen.