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 ]
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 have 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.
The counties and county-level municipalities are listed below.
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 42394 square kilometers.
Aalborg Municipality is a municipality in North Jutland Region on the Jutland peninsula in northern Denmark. The municipality straddles the Limfjord, the waterway which connects the North Sea and the Kattegat east-to-west, and which separates the main body of the Jutland peninsula from the island of Vendsyssel-Thy north-to-south. It has a land area of 1,143.99 km2 (441.70 sq mi) and a population of 222,571.
Bornholm is a Danish island in the Baltic Sea, to the east of the rest of Denmark, south of Sweden, northeast of Germany and north of Poland.
Denmark is a Nordic country located in Northern Europe. It consists of the Jutland Peninsula and several islands in the Baltic Sea, referred to as the Danish Archipelago. Denmark is located southwest of Sweden and due south of Norway and is bordered by the German state Schleswig-Holstein to the south, on Denmark's only land border, 68 kilometres long.
Transport in Denmark is developed and modern. The motorway network covers 1,111 km while the railway network totals 2,667 km of operational track. The Great Belt Fixed Link connecting the islands of Zealand and Funen and the New Little Belt Bridge connecting Funen and Jutland greatly improved the traffic flow across the country on both motorways and rail. The two largest airports of Copenhagen and Billund provide a variety of domestic and international connections, while ferries provide services to the Faroe Islands, Greenland, Iceland, Germany, Sweden, and Norway, as well as domestic routes servicing most Danish islands.
Denmark is a Nordic country in the central portion of Northern Europe. It is the metropolitan part of and the most populous constituent of the Kingdom of Denmark, a constitutionally unitary state that includes the autonomous territories of the Faroe Islands and Greenland in the North Atlantic Ocean. Metropolitan Denmark is the southernmost of the Scandinavian countries, lying south-west and south of Sweden, south of Norway, and north of Germany, with which it shares a short border, Denmark's only land border.
Rønne is the largest town on the Danish island of Bornholm in the Baltic Sea. It has a population of 13,798. It was a municipality in its own right from 1970 until 2002, when Bornholm was a county. It has an area of 29.11 square kilometres, and is the administrative centre of the Bornholm municipality. As of 2018 11,539 inhabitants live in Rønne Parish, which is a narrow piece of land on the westernmost of the island and stretching north and southward comprising around a third of the area of the former municipality. Knudsker Parish made up the rest of the former municipality. Not all inhabitants of either Rønne or Knudsker (400-7553) parishes live in the city of Rønne.
The Courts of Denmark is the ordinary court system of the Kingdom of Denmark. The Courts of Denmark as an organizational entity was created with the Police and Judiciary Reform Act taking effect 1 January 2007 which also significantly reformed the court system e.g. by removing original jurisdiction from the High Courts and by introducing a new jury system.
Frederiksberg Kommune is a municipality on the island of Zealand (Sjælland) in Denmark. Part of the Capital Region of Denmark and the city of Copenhagen, it is surrounded by Copenhagen Municipality. The municipality, co-extensive with its seat, covers a total area of 8.71 km2 according to the Municipal Key Figures and has a population of 104,664 making it the smallest municipality in Denmark area-wise, the seventh most populous, and the most densely populated. Its mayor is Michael Vindfeldt from the Social Democrats serving from 1 January 2022.
The Danish Football Union is the governing body of football in Denmark. It is the organization of Danish football clubs and runs the professional Danish football leagues, alongside the men's and women's national teams. Based in the city of Brøndby, it is a founding member of both FIFA and UEFA. The DBU has also been the governing body of futsal in Denmark since 2008.
The Region of Southern Denmark is an administrative region of Denmark established on Monday 1 January 2007 as part of the 2007 Danish Municipal Reform, which abolished the traditional counties ("amter") and set up five larger regions. At the same time, smaller municipalities were merged into larger units, cutting the number of municipalities from 271 before 1 January 2007 to 98. The reform diminished the power of the regional level dramatically in favor of the local level and the central government in Copenhagen. The Region of Southern Denmark has 22 municipalities. The reform was implemented in Denmark on 1 January 2007, although the merger of the Funish municipalities of Ærøskøbing and Marstal, being a part of the reform, was given the go-ahead to be implemented on Sunday 1 January 2006, one year before the main reform. It borders Schleswig-Holstein (Germany) to the south and Central Denmark Region to the north and is connected to Region Zealand via the Great Belt Fixed Link.
The Capital Region of Denmark is the easternmost administrative region of Denmark, and contains Copenhagen, the national capital.
The Central Denmark Region, or more directly translated as the Central Jutland Region and sometimes simply Mid-Jutland, is an administrative region of Denmark established on 1 January 2007 as part of the 2007 Danish municipal reform. The reform abolished the traditional counties (amter) and replaced them with five new administrative regions. At the same time, smaller municipalities were merged into larger units, cutting the total number of municipalities from 271 to 98. The reform diminished the power of the regional level dramatically in favour of the local level and the national government in Copenhagen. The Central Denmark Region comprises 19 municipalities.
The North Jutland Region, or in some official sources, the North Denmark Region, is an administrative region of Denmark established on 1 January 2007 as part of the 2007 Danish municipal reform, which abolished the traditional counties and set up five larger regions. At the same time, smaller municipalities were merged into larger units, cutting the number of municipalities from 271 before 1 January 2006, when Ærø Municipality was created, to 98. North Jutland Region has 11 municipalities. The reform diminished the power of the regional level dramatically in favor of the local level and the central government in Copenhagen.
The five Regions of Denmark were created as administrative entities at a level above the municipalities and below the central government in the public sector as part of the 2007 Danish Municipal Reform, when the 13 counties (amter) were abolished. At the same time, the number of municipalities (kommuner) was cut from 270 to 98. The reform was approved and made into a law by the lawmakers in the Folketing 26 June 2005 with elections to the 98 municipalities and 5 regions being held Tuesday 15 November 2005.
The Danish Realm, officially the Kingdom of Denmark, is the area over which the monarch of Denmark is head of state. It consists of metropolitan Denmark—the kingdom's territory in continental Europe and sometimes called "Denmark proper" —and the realm's two autonomous regions: the Faroe Islands in North Atlantic and Greenland in North America. The relationship between the three parts of the Kingdom is also known as The unity of the Realm.
The Copenhagen metropolitan area or Metropolitan Copenhagen is a large commuter belt surrounding Copenhagen, the capital of Denmark. It includes Copenhagen Municipality, Frederiksberg and surrounding municipalities stretching westward across Zealand. It has a densely-populated core surrounded by suburban settlements.
Denmark is divided into five regions, which contain 98 municipalities. The Capital Region has 29 municipalities, Southern Denmark 22, Central Denmark 19, Zealand 17 and North Denmark 11.
Postal codes in Denmark are determined by a four digit system that was introduced in 1967. The only exceptions are five special purpose 3-digit codes.
Denmark, including its dependencies of Faroe Islands and Greenland, uses six time zones.