The municipality was created on 1 January 1923 when the large municipality of Vikedal was split into three. The southeastern part of Vikedal became the municipality of Imsland. Initially, Imsland had a population of 604. The municipality existed for 42 years before it was dissolved in a merger brought upon by the recommendations of the Schei Committee. On 1 January 1965, the part of Imsland located south of the Vindafjorden (population: 61) was merged into the neighboring Suldal municipality. The rest of Imsland (population: 372) was merged with Sandeid and parts of Vikedal, Vats, and Skjold municipalities to form the new municipality of Vindafjord.[3]
Name
The municipality (originally the parish) is named after the old Imsland farm (Old Norse: Ylmisland) since the first Imsland Church was built there. The first element is the old name for a local river that used to be called Ylma. It is likely that the river name comes from the genitive case of the word olmr which means "fierce" or "angry". The last element is land which means "land" or "district".[4]
The municipal council(Herredsstyre) of Imsland was made up of representatives that were elected to four year terms. The party breakdown of the final municipal council was as follows:
