Hen is a former municipality in Møre og Romsdal county, Norway. The 245-square-kilometre (95 sq mi) municipality existed from 1902 until its dissolution in 1964. Hen encompassed the valleys extending to the south and east of the Isfjorden in the northeastern part of the present-day Rauma Municipality. The administrative center of Hen was the village of Isfjorden. The area of Hen Municipality is still a parish within the municipality of Rauma. The parish has one church, Hen Church, located in Isfjorden.[2][3]
The municipality of Hen was established on 1 January 1902 when the large Grytten Municipality was divided into Hen (population: 1,128) and Grytten (population: 1,728). 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 Hen (population: 1,663) was merged with the neighboring municipalities of Eid (population: 381), Grytten (population: 3,683), Voll (population: 1,163), and the southern part of Veøy municipality (population: 1,400) to form the new Rauma Municipality.[2][4]
Name
The municipality (originally the parish) is named after the old Hen farm (Old Norse: Hávin) since the first Hen Church was built there. The meaning of the first element is uncertain. It could be hár which means "high" or alternatively há which means "the grass that grows after the first crop has been mown". The last element is vin which means "meadow" or "pasture".[5]
The municipal council(Herredsstyre) of Hen was made up of 13 representatives that were elected to four year terms. The party breakdown of the final municipal council was as follows: