On 1 January 1838, the large municipality of Rendal was established. This municipality spanned 4,201 square kilometres (1,622 sq mi) from the Østerdalen valley to the border with Sweden. During the 1870s, discussions began on dividing the large municipality. On 1 January 1880, the municipality of Rendal was split in two to create the municipalities of Ytre Rendal (population: 1,661) and Øvre Rendal (population: 1,868). The new municipality of Ytre Rendal had an area of 1,680 square kilometres (650 sq mi). On 1 January 1911, the new municipality of Engerdal was established to the east of Ytre Rendal. This new municipality was created by taking 330 square kilometres (130 sq mi) of eastern Ytre Rendal, plus area from the neighboring municipalities of Øvre Rendal, Tolga, and Trysil. This portion of Ytre Rendal that became part of Engerdal had 311 residents. During the 1960s, there were many municipal mergers across Norway due to the work of the Schei Committee. On 1 January 1965, the new municipality of Rendalen was created by merging Ytre Rendal (population: 1,913) and Øvre Rendal (population: 1,629).[6]
Name
The municipality (originally the parish) is named after the Rendalen valley (Old Norse: Reindalr). In 1880, the large municipality of Rendal was divided to create two new municipalities. Both municipalities were named after the old municipality and to distinguish between the two, an additional word was added to the name. The word ytre was added to this name and the word øvre was added to the other municipality. The word ytre means "outer" (while øvre means "upper"). The first element of Rendal is rein which means "reindeer". The last element is dalr which means "valley" or "dale". The river Rena runs through the valley and it is not known if the valley was named after the river or if the river was named after the valley. A nearby mountain Renafjellet also has a similar name.[7] Historically, the name of the municipality was spelled Ytre Rendalen. On 3 November 1917, a royal resolution changed the spelling of the name of the municipality to Ytre Rendal, removing the definite form ending -en.[8]
The municipal council(Herredsstyre) of Ytre Rendal was made up of representatives that were elected to four year terms. The party breakdown of the final municipal council was as follows:
