Regions of Denmark

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Image:Dk adm regions 2007.gif

The Regions of Denmark will be created under the Danish Municipal Reform of 2007, which will create five new administrative units to replace the country's traditional thirteen counties (amter). At the same time, smaller municipalities (kommuner) will be merged into larger units, cutting the number of municipalities from 270 to 98. The reform will be implemented on 1 January 2007. The most important area of responsibility for the new regions will be the national health service. Each regional council will have 41 members. The county councils have a total of 384 members (2006).

The reform has been called the biggest reform in thirty years, and is an important policy issue for the current Liberal-Conservative Danish cabinet, most importantly for Lars Løkke Rasmussen, minister of the Interior and Health. The abolition of the counties has long been an important goal for both the Conservatives and the Danish People's Party. In June 2004, the Danish People's Party decided to back the reform, thus securing a majority in the Danish parliament, Folketinget, although the party had preferred just abolishing the counties without replacing them with a new third administrative level (the other two being the government and the municipalities). The parties who wanted to limit the "power" of or abolish the second tier of government altogether, have prevailed insofar as the regions will not be allowed to levy any taxes, but will be financed mainly by the central government, with some financing coming from the municipalities.

[edit] List of regions

Region	Capital	Population	Area (km²)	Pop. density (per km²)	Present counties
Hovedstaden	Hillerød	1,633,565	2,561	637.9	Copenhagen County and Frederiksborg, and the municipalities of Copenhagen, Frederiksberg and Bornholm
Midtjylland	Viborg	1,219,741	13,053	93.4	Ringkjøbing, nearly all of Århus, the southern part of Viborg and the northern part of Vejle
Nordjylland	Aalborg	576,802	8,020	71.9	North Jutland, the northern part of Viborg County and a small part of Århus County
Sjælland	Sorø	811,511	7,273	111.6	Roskilde, Storstrøm, and Vestsjælland
Syddanmark	Vejle	1,185,840	12,191	97.3	Fyn, Ribe, Sønderjylland and the southern half of Vejle County
Denmark	Copenhagen	5,427,459	43,093	125.9	Entire country