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Counties of Denmark

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Counties of Denmark (Danish: Danmarks amter) were former subdivisions of metropolitan Denmark and overseas territories, used primarily for administrative regions, with each county having its own council with substantial powers. Originally there had been twenty-four counties, but the number was reduced to roughly fourteen in 1970 – the number fluctuated slightly over the next three decades. In 2006 there were thirteen traditional counties as well as three municipalities with county status (the island of Bornholm, which was a county from 1660 until 2002, became a regional municipality with county powers, but only briefly from 2003 until 2006). On 1 January 2007 the counties were abolished and replaced by five larger regions which, unlike the counties, are not municipalities.

Copenhagen County comprised all the municipalities of Metropolitan Copenhagen, except Copenhagen Municipality and Frederiksberg Municipality which, on account of their peculiarity of being outside any of the traditional counties, had the equivalent of "county status". On 1 January 2007 these two municipalities lost their special status.

Greenland and the Faroe Islands are also part of the Danish Realm, but both enjoy internal autonomy. Both are largely self-governing, and each community sends two members to the Danish Parliament. The Faroe Islands obtained self-government in 1948; from 1816 to 1948 the islands had the status of a Danish county. Greenland changed from a colony to an overseas county in 1953, and subsequently gained home rule in 1979.[citation needed]

Abolition

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A government proposal in 2004 called for the counties to be abolished and replaced by five large regions with health care as their main responsibilities: two regions in Jutland, two regions in Zealand and one region covering Funen and the southernmost part of Jutland. The proposal also required the municipalities to merge reducing them from 271 to 98, with a minimum of 20,000 inhabitants in each municipality, although some exceptions were made to this rule. In 2007, 25 municipalities had fewer than 30,000 inhabitants each, with the average number of inhabitants over 55,500 per municipality. Only the United Kingdom and Ireland had more populous entities at the lowest political administrative level.

The reform was confirmed by the Danish Parliament on 24 February 2005 and the counties were abolished on 1 January 2007.

List of counties (1970–2006)

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Map of Denmark showing the former counties
Map of Denmark showing the former counties

The counties and county-level municipalities are listed below.

Map no.
Name Capital Type of entity Population (2006) Total area (km2) Pop. density
(per km2)
0 Greenland County (from 1953 to 1979) Nuuk County n/a 2,166,000 (excluded from total) n/a
1 Copenhagen Municipality (Part of) Copenhagen Municipality with county tasks 501,158 91.3 5,489.1
2 Frederiksberg Municipality Frederiksberg Municipality with county tasks 91,855 8.7 10,560.5
3 Copenhagen County Glostrup County 618,529 526 1,175.9
4 Frederiksborg County Hillerød County 378,686 1,347 281.1
5 Roskilde County Roskilde County 241,523 891 271
6 West Zealand County Sorø County 307,207 2,984 103
7 Storstrøm County Nykøbing County 262,781 3,398 77.3
8 Funen County Odense County 478,347 3,485 137.2
9 South Jutland County Aabenraa County 252,433 3,939 64.1
10 Ribe County Ribe County 224,261 3,132 71.6
11 Vejle County Vejle County 360,921 2,997 120.4
12 Ringkjøbing County Ringkøbing County 275,065 4,854 56.7
13 Viborg County Viborg County 234,896 4,122 57
14 North Jutland County Aalborg County 495,090 6,173 80.2
15 Aarhus County Århus County 661,370 4,561 145
16 Bornholm Rønne county (1970–2002),
regional municipality with county tasks (2003–2006)
43,347 588 73.7
Denmark Copenhagen Entire country 5,427,459 43,093 125.9

Ringkjøbing County used an old spelling of its name, while its capital city and state authorities used the modern Danish spelling, Ringkøbing.

The archipelago Ertholmene, located northeast of Bornholm, have never been a part of a municipality, county, or (from 2007) region. Statistics Denmark calls them Christiansø and Frederiksø, named after the two inhabited islets. They are included in numbers for Denmark (92 inhabitants; 0.39 square kilometers). The land area of Denmark is 42,394 square kilometers.

See also

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References

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