BookRags.com Literature Guides Literature
Guides		 Criticism & Essays Criticism &
Essays		 Questions & Answers Questions &
Answers		 Lesson Plans Lesson
Plans		 My Bibliography Periodic Table U.S. Presidents Shakespeare Sonnet Shake-Up
Research Anything:        
History | Encyclopedias | Films | News | Create a Bibliography | More... Login | Register | Help
Not What You Meant?  There are 25 definitions for Commune.

Municipalities of Denmark

 Print-Friendly
About 7 pages (2,014 words)

Bookmark and Share Know this topic well? Help others and get FREE products!
Denmark

This article is part of the series:
Politics and government of
Denmark
2001 · 2005 · 2007

See also
Other countries · Atlas
 Politics Portal
 •  • edit
For an non-country specific explanation of municipalities, see Municipality.

Contents

Municipal Reform

Denmark is divided into five regions and 98 municipalities (Danish, kommuner). This was established per an administrative reform, effective January 1, 2007 which replaced the 13 counties (amter) with 5 regions (regioner). The 270 municipalities were consolidated into 98 larger units, most of which have at least 20,000 inhabitants. The reason was to give the new municipalities greater financial and professional sustainability. Many of the responsibilities of the former counties were taken over by the enlarged municipalies. 32 of the former municipalities did not merge into larger units, either because they already had merged or had a population larger than 20,000 or because they signed a cooperation agreement with a larger municipality.

Councillors

The 2,522 municipal councillors (and 205 regional councillors) were elected Tuesday, November 15 2005. In 1997 there were 4,685 municipal and 374 county councillors in the then 275 municipalities and 14 counties. As an example of the reduction in the number of councillors, Bornholm then had a total of 122 councillors in five municipalities and one county (15 county councillors). After the merger January 1 2003 of the five municipalities and the county, there was one single municipal council with 27 municipal councillors. After January 1 2007, when Bornholm Regional Municipality lost its (shortlived) county privileges, there is talk of a reduction to 21 municipal councillors, the guidelines for a municipality with between 10,000 and 49,999 inhabitants being a maximum of 21 municipal councillors. The guidelines for municipalities with under 3,500 inhabitants is a maximum of 13 (minimum 5) and with between 3,500 and 9,999 inhabitants a maximum of 17 councillors. The guidelines for over 50,000 inhabitants is a maximum of 25 councillors with the exception of especially populous municipalities; Copenhagen municipality has 55 municipal councillors, and populous municipalities such as Århus and Aalborg have 31 each, and Odense has 29.

Council elections

Council elections are held on the third Tuesday of November every four years. The previous were held November 20 2001 (for the first time ever simultaneously with national parliament elections (Folketingsvalg)) and the next are due to be held November 17 2009 and November 19 2013.

Council mergers

The newly formed 5 regional and 66 municipal councils acted as transitional merger committees (sammenlægningsudvalg) in 2006 with the responsibility of arranging the mergers of the old counties and municipalities into 5 and 66 new entities respectively. The councils that were to be merged and replaced/abolished just continued their work until 2006, and then ceased to exist.

List of municipalities

Municipalities of Denmark effective January 1 2007
Municipalities of Denmark effective January 1 2007

Region Hovedstaden

Region Midtjylland

Region Nordjylland

Region Sjælland

Region Syddanmark

Municipal Reform 2007

The Municipal Reform of 2007 is the name given to the agreement of merging many municipalities, as well as replacing the 13 counties with five regions, which was ratified by the parties Venstre, Conservative People's Party, Danish People's Party, Social Democratic Party and Det Radikale Venstre on June 16 2005 effective as of January 1 2007. The reform replaced the structure of municipalities and counties introduced with the reform of 1970. Since the counties weren't the only structure based on the municipal layout of Denmark, other related changes were necessary as well. Thus, police districts (reduced from 54 to 12), court districts (reduced from 82 to 24), and electoral wards also needed to be updated after the municipal reform.

1970-2006

Until December 31, 2006, Denmark was divided into 13 counties (amter), and 270 municipalities (kommuner).

List of municipalities (1970-2006)

Municipalities of Denmark, 1970-2006
Municipalities of Denmark, 1970-2006

Capital city is indicated if the name differs from the name of the municipality.

Frederiksborg Amt (Frederiksborg County, capital: Hillerød)

Fyns Amt (Funen County, capital: Odense)

Københavns Amt (Copenhagen County, capital: Glostrup)

The borders of Copenhagen County surrounded the municipalities of Copenhagen and Frederiksberg but did not include them.

Nordjyllands Amt (North Jutland County, capital: Ålborg)

Ribe Amt (Ribe County)

Ringkjøbing Amt (Ringkjøbing County, capital: Ringkøbing

Roskilde amt (Roskilde County)

Storstrøms Amt (Storstrøm County, capital: Nykøbing Falster)

Sønderjyllands Amt (South Jutland County, capital: Aabenraa)

Vejle Amt (Vejle County)

Vestsjællands Amt (West Zealand County, capital Sorø)

Viborg Amt (Viborg County)

Århus Amt (Aarhus County)

Municipalities not belonging to any county

See also: Category:Municipalities of Denmark

External links

 •  • e
Second-level administrative divisions of Europe

Albania · Austria · Belgium · Bulgaria · Croatia · Czech Republic · Denmark · Estonia · Finland · France · Germany · Greece · Hungary · Iceland · Italy · Kazakhstan1 · Latvia · Lithuania · Luxembourg · Malta · Moldova · Netherlands · Norway · Poland · Portugal · Romania · Russia1 · Serbia · Slovakia · Slovenia · Spain · Sweden · Switzerland · Turkey1 · Ukraine · United Kingdom

1 Partly or significantly in Asia. ² Entirely in West Asia, but considered European for cultural, political and historical reasons. ³ Partially or entirely in Asia, depending on the definition of the border between Europe and Asia.

View More Summaries on Municipalities of Denmark
 
View all | View only answered questions | View only unanswered questions
Ask any question on Municipalities of Denmark and get it answered FAST!
Answer questions in BookRags Q&A and earn points toward
discounted or even FREE Study Guides and other BookRags products!
Learn more about BookRags Q&A
Copyrights
Municipalities of Denmark from Wíkipedia. ©2006 by Wíkipedia. Licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. View a list of authors or edit this article.

Article Navigation
Join BookRagslearn moreJoin BookRags
About BookRags | Customer Service | Report an Error | Terms of Use | Privacy Policy |