Meldal

Meldal is a village and municipality in Sør-Trøndelag county, Norway. It is part of the Orkdalen region.

The administrative centre of the municipality is the village of Meldal. The 0.75-square-kilometre (190-acre) village of Meldal has a population (2013) of 628, giving the village a population density of 837 inhabitants per square kilometre (2,170/sq mi). Other villages include Løkken Verk, Bjørnli, and Storås.

The municipality is most renowned for its mining activities at Løkken Verk, being the birthplace of the Orkla mining company, now Orkla Group. It is also home to the annual Storåsfestivalen music festival.

General information

Meldal was established as a municipality on 1 January 1838 (see formannskapsdistrikt). In 1839, the southern district of Rennebu was separated from Meldal to form a municipality of its own.

Name

The Old Norse form of the name was Meðaldalr. The first element is meðal which means "middle" and the last element is dalr which means "valley" or "dale". The municipality is named this probably because it is located in the middle of the Orkdalen valley. The name was historically spelled Meldalen.

Å, Meldal

Å is a village in the municipality of Meldal in Sør-Trøndelag county, Norway. It is the southernmost of the four urban areas in the municipality: Meldal, Løkken Verk, Storås, and Å. It lies along the Orkla River, about 2 kilometres (1.2 mi) north of the border with the municipality of Rennebu.

Å, has the postal address 7335 Jerpstad, to distinguish it from other places named Å. Agriculture is one of the village's most important industries. A person named Jo Aa, who died in the 1990s, lived in the village of Å, and they had the shortest name in Norway.

Name

The village (originally a farm) is first mentioned around 1435 "af Aam" (dative plural). The name is from the Old Norse Ár, the plural of á, meaning "(small) river". The name refers to the fact that the farm is lying between two rivers: the Orkla River and Reisa River. Until 1917, Å was spelled Aa.

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