The counties of Sweden (Swedish: Sveriges län) are the first-level administrative subdivisions of Sweden. There are twenty-one counties; however, the number of counties has varied over time, due to territorial changes and to divisions or mergers of existing counties.
They are not regarded as geographical areas by Swedes as they are not connected to dialects or identity, which is a role fulfilled by the historical provinces of Sweden (Swedish: landskap). This level of administrative unit was first established in the 1634 Instrument of Government on Lord Chancellor Count Axel Oxenstierna's initiative, and superseded the landskap, in order to introduce a more efficient administration of the realm. At that time, they were what the translation of län into English literally means: fiefdoms. The county borders often follow the provincial borders, but the Crown often chose to make slight relocations to suit its purposes.
In every county there is a county administrative board (länsstyrelse) headed by a governor (landshövding), appointed by the government, as well as a separate regional council (region). In the county of Gotland however, the county's only municipality has adopted regional responsibilities. The aims of the county administrative board are to supervise local state administration (that is not otherwise assigned to other government agencies), and to coordinate political goals with the central government. The regional council is the elected regional political assembly that oversees the municipal affairs of the county, primarily in regard to public healthcare, public transport, and culture.
Comparison with the provinces of Sweden Bold lines represent county borders, colors represent provinces.
Each county region contains a number of municipalities (kommuner), the existence of which is partly at the discretion of the central government. Since 2004 their number has been 290, thus an average of 13.8 municipalities per county.
Sweden's provinces, or landskap, and the "lands", or landsdelar, lack political importance today but are common denominations culturally and historically. The provinces had their own laws and justice systems and could have large cultural and religious differences. The province of Småland (literally small land) historically was several provinces with its own laws. Here burial tradition in the era before the Viking Age could differ significantly from province to province. The province of Norrbotten is a relatively recent creation; it was part of Västerbotten which extended all the way to Österbotten in today's Finland before 1809. Finnish and Swedish Lapland formed a single province until 1809.
Historically, the provinces were grouped in three lands: Götaland, being southern and western Sweden; Svealand being eastern and south-eastern, and Norrland being the entire northern half. The names of the first two refer to ancient tribes, and the third is a geographical reference. They are still commonly used as geographical references. The boundaries have changed over time, with the most significant in 1658 (the cession of provinces from Denmark-Norway to Sweden) and 1812 (due to the loss of Finland to Russia in 1809). In 1812, some provinces were moved from Götaland to Svealand.
Finland
After the Finnish War, Sweden was forced to cede the counties in Finland to Russia following the Treaty of Fredrikshamn in (1809). However, the counties were upheld in Finland until a reform in 1997. They are still in use in Sweden, 370 years later.
Under the aegis of the Swedish government, Ansvarskommittén has been investigating the possibilities of merging the current 21 counties into 6 to 9 larger regions. These proposals are from their final report, delivered in 2007:[2]
A model for this comes from the merger of some counties into Skåne County and Västra Götaland County in 1997 and 1998, respectively, which is now considered a success.
The counties are discussing the proposal. An obstacle is that Stockholm County does not want to merge with any other county, while its neighbours want to merge with Stockholm. After this discussion the following proposal has in 2016 emerged:
Norrbotten, Västerbotten, Västernorrland and Jämtland county
Dalarna, Gävleborgs, Södermanlands, Uppsala, Västmanland and Örebro county
Östergötland, Jönköping, Kalmar and Kronoberg county
Gotland and Stockholm county
Halland, Värmland and Västra Götaland county
Blekinge and Skåne county
The main difference is that the proposed Bergslagen is divided to other counties, and Stockholm is on its own (plus the small Gotland which has air connections to Stockholm)
1 Spans the conventional boundary between Europe and another continent.
2 Considered European for cultural, political and historical reasons but is geographically in Western Asia.
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