Historically, Brandval was part of the large parish of Grue. On 1 January 1838, when municipalities were established in Norway, Brandval was part of Grue Municipality, making up the southern part of the municipality. On 1 January 1867, the Brandval area (population: 3,946) was separated from Grue to become the new Brandval municipality. This left Grue with 6,464 residents. In 1941 a small part of Grue municipality (population: 68) was transferred to Brandval municipality. During the 1960s, there were many municipal mergers across Norway due to the work of the Schei Committee. On 1 January 1964, the municipality of Brandval (population: 4,384) was merged with the town of Kongsvinger (population: 2,349) and the municipality of Vinger (population: 6,257) to form the new Kongsvinger Municipality which had a total population of 12,990 residents.[5]
Name
The municipality (originally the parish) is named after the old Brandval farm (Old Norse: Brandváll) since the first Brandval Church was built there. The first element is brandr which means "fire" or "burning". The last element is váll which means "land that is cleared by burning". Thus the name likely refers to a forested area that was cleared by burning.[6]
The municipal council(Herredsstyre) of Brandval was made up of 21 representatives that were elected to four year terms. The party breakdown of the final municipal council was as follows:
^Helland, Amund (1902). "Brandval herred". Norges land og folk: Kristians amt (in Norwegian). Vol. IV. Kristiania, Norway: H. Aschehoug & Company. p. 311. Retrieved 3 July 2022.