Lista is a former municipality located in the old Vest-Agder county in Norway. The 193-square-kilometre (75 sq mi) municipality existed from 1838 until its dissolution in 1965. The administrative centre was the village of Vanse where Vanse Church is located. Lista municipality was historically known as the municipality of Vanse until 1911. The former municipality's land is now located in the present-day municipality of Farsund in Agder county.
Farsund Airport, Lista is located here, but it has not had any regularly scheduled commercial flights since 1999; however, there are discussions to use it as a base for offshore operations. Lista is located on a large peninsula along the Listafjorden and is home to the villages of Vestbygd and Vanse and the town of Farsund.
History
The municipality of Vanse was established on 1 January 1838 (see formannskapsdistrikt law). According to the 1835 census, the municipality had a population of 4,213.[3] On 1 January 1903, an area with 99 inhabitants was transferred from Vanse to the neighboring town of Farsund. Again in 1948, another area with 64 inhabitants was transferred from Lista to the town of Farsund. During the 1960s, there were many major municipal mergers across Norway due to the work of the Schei Committee. On 1 January 1965, the municipalities of Lista, Herad, and Spind were merged with the town of Farsund to create a new, larger municipality of Farsund. Prior to the merger, Lista had a population of 4,544.[4]
Name
The municipality (originally the parish) was originally named after the old Vanse farm (Old Norse: Vanesyn) since the first Vanse Church was built there. The meaning of the first element is uncertain. It is possible that the first element is derived from the plural of vanr which means "Vanir", a group of Old Norse gods. The last element is vin which means "meadow" or "pasture".[5]
On 3 November 1917, a royal resolution changed the spelling of the name of the municipality to Lista.[6] This was changed to bring back a modern version of the historical name for the area. The new name comes from the local peninsula called Lista (Old Norse: Listi). The name comes from the word listi which means "border" or "edge", likely signifying its location on the southern edge of Norway. From 1662 until 1919, Vest-Agder county was named "Lister og Mandals amt", signifying the significance of the area. (The name Lista was misunderstood by Danish clerks as a plural form and therefore written with the plural ending -er.)[7][8]
The municipal council(Herredsstyre) of Lista was made up of representatives that were elected to four year terms. The tables below show the historical composition of the council by political party.
