The parish of Budal was established as a municipality in 1879 when it was separated from the municipality of Støren. Initially, Budal had a population of 585. During the 1960s, there were many municipal mergers across Norway due to the work of the Schei Committee. On 1 January 1964, Budal (population: 529) was merged with the municipalities of Singsås (population: 1,554), Soknedal (population: 1,916), and Støren (population: 2,296) to form the new municipality of Midtre Gauldal.[5]
Name
The municipality (originally the parish) is named after the old Budalen farm (Old Norse: Buadalr) since the first Budal Church was built there. The first element is the name of the local river Bua. That name is the same as the word bua which refers to a "place where people live". The last element is dalr which means "valley" or "dale".[4][6] Historically, the name of the municipality was spelled Budalen. On 3 November 1917, a royal resolution changed the spelling of the name of the municipality to Budal, removing the definite form ending -en.[7]
The municipal council(Herredsstyre) of Budal was made up of 13 representatives that were elected to four year terms. The party breakdown of the final municipal council was as follows:
^Helland, Amund (1898). "Budalens herred". XVI Søndre Trondheims amt. Anden del. Norges land og folk (in Norwegian). Kristiania, Norway: H. Aschehoug & Company. p. 282. Retrieved 3 July 2022.