The parish of Herod was established as a municipality January 1, 1838 (see formannskapsdistrikt). On 17 October 1893 the district Spind was separated from Herad to create a municipality of its own. The split left Herad with 1.019 inhabitants.

On 1 January 1965 Herad was incorporated into the enlarged Farsund municipality. Spind and Lista were also part of the merger, before which the population of Herad had dropped to 359.