Scania - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Scania is the southernmost of the 25 traditional non-administrative provinces

Provinces of Sweden

The provinces of Sweden, landskap, are historical, geographical and cultural regions. Sweden has 25 provinces and they have no administrative function, but remain historical legacies and the means of cultural identification....

(landskap) of Sweden

Sweden

Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....

, constituting a peninsula on the southern tip of the Scandinavian peninsula

Scandinavian Peninsula

The Scandinavian Peninsula is a peninsula in Northern Europe, which today covers Norway, Sweden, and most of northern Finland. Prior to the 17th and 18th centuries, large parts of the southern peninsula—including the core region of Scania from which the peninsula takes its name—were part of...

, and some adjacent islands. The modern administrative subdivision

Administrative division

An administrative division, subnational entity, or country subdivision is a portion of a country or other political division, established for the purpose of government. Administrative divisions are each granted a certain degree of autonomy, and are required to manage themselves through their own...

(län) Skåne County

Skåne County

Skåne County is the southernmost administrative county or län, of Sweden, basically corresponding to the historical province Scania. It borders the counties of Halland, Kronoberg and Blekinge. The seat of residence for the Skåne Governor is the town of Malmö...

is almost, but not totally, congruent with the province. The largest city is Malmö

Malmö

Malmö , in the southernmost province of Scania, is the third most populous city in Sweden, after Stockholm and Gothenburg.Malmö is the seat of Malmö Municipality and the capital of Skåne County...

, which is also the third largest in Sweden and the administrative centre of Skåne County.

To the north, Scania borders the provinces of Halland

Halland

' is one of the traditional provinces of Sweden , on the western coast of Sweden. It borders Västergötland, Småland, Scania and the sea of Kattegat.-Administration:...

and Småland

Småland

' is a historical province in southern Sweden.Småland borders Blekinge, Scania or Skåne, Halland, Västergötland, Östergötland and the island Öland in the Baltic Sea. The name Småland literally means Small Lands. . The latinized form Smolandia has been used in other languages...

, to the north-east Blekinge

Blekinge

' is one of the traditional provinces of Sweden , situated in the south of the country. It borders Småland, Scania and the Baltic Sea.The name "Blekinge" comes from the adjective bleke, which corresponds to the nautical term for "dead calm"....

, to the east and south the Baltic Sea

Baltic Sea

The Baltic Sea is a brackish mediterranean sea located in Northern Europe, from 53°N to 66°N latitude and from 20°E to 26°E longitude. It is bounded by the Scandinavian Peninsula, the mainland of Europe, and the Danish islands. It drains into the Kattegat by way of the Øresund, the Great Belt and...

, and to the west the Öresund strait

Oresund

The Sound , is the strait that separates the Danish island Zealand from the southern Swedish province of Scania. Its width is just at the narrowest point between Helsingør, Denmark, and Helsingborg, Sweden...

. Since 2000 a road and railway bridge, the Øresund Bridge constitutes a fixed link to the Danish island of Zealand. It is part of the transnational Öresund Region

Oresund Region

The Øresund or Öresund Region is a transnational region in northern Europe, centred on the cities of Copenhagen and Malmö. Located by the shores of the Øresund strait and connected by the Oresund Bridge, the Capital Region of Denmark and Region Zealand constitute the Danish side, while Skåne...

.

The province, up until the Treaty of Roskilde

Treaty of Roskilde

The Treaty of Roskilde was concluded on 26 February or 8 March 1658 during the Second Northern War between Frederick III of Denmark–Norway and Charles X Gustav of Sweden in the Danish city of Roskilde...

in 1658, formed part of the kingdom of Denmark

Denmark

Denmark is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe. The countries of Denmark and Greenland, as well as the Faroe Islands, constitute the Kingdom of Denmark . It is the southernmost of the Nordic countries, southwest of Sweden and south of Norway, and bordered to the south by Germany. Denmark...

. The transition to Sweden was later confirmed by the Treaty of Copenhagen 1660, the Peace of Lund

Peace of Lund

The Peace of Lund, signed on 16 September / 26 September 1679, was the final peace treaty between Denmark-Norway and the Swedish Empire in the Scanian War.The war had started when Sweden on French initiative attacked Brandenburg-Prussia...

1679, the Peace of Travendal

Peace of Travendal

The Peace of Travendal was a peace treaty concluded during the Great Northern War on 8 or 18 August 1700 between the Swedish Empire, Denmark-Norway and Holstein-Gottorp in Traventhal....

1700. The last serious Danish attempt to retake the province failed in 1710, after the Battle of Helsingborg

Battle of Helsingborg (1710)

The Battle of Helsingborg was Denmark's failed and final attempt to regain the Scanian lands, lost to Sweden in 1658.On the Ringstorp heights northwest of Helsingborg, 14,000 Danish invaders under Jørgen Rantzau were decisively defeated by an equally large Swedish army under Magnus...

. The period 1658-1720 saw widespread violence by the Swedish military against the population. The region did not form part of Sweden proper until 1720, but had the status of conquered "foreign land" until that year. Until the early 19th century, a policy of forced assimilation

Forced assimilation

Forced assimilation is a process of forced cultural assimilation of religious or ethnic minority groups, into an established and generally larger community...

was employed by the Swedish government in what until then had been a linguistically Danish region. Controversy relating to whether the Scanian dialects should be classified as Swedish remains to this day.

Around 130 km long from north to south, Scania covers less than 3% of Sweden's total area, but the population of approximately 1,230,000 represents 13% of Sweden's total population. About 16% of the total population of the province are foreign-born. With 111 inh/km² Scania is the second most densely populated

Population density

Population density is a measurement of population per unit area or unit volume. It is frequently applied to living organisms, and particularly to humans...

province of Sweden, next only to Södermanland

Södermanland

', sometimes referred to under its Latin form Sudermannia or Sudermania, is a historical province or landskap on the south eastern coast of Sweden. It borders Östergötland, Närke, Västmanland and Uppland. It is also bounded by lake Mälaren and the Baltic sea.In Swedish, the province name is...

Endonym and exonyms

The endonym

Exonym and endonym

In ethnolinguistics, an endonym or autonym is a local name for a geographical feature, and an exonym or xenonym is a foreign language name for it...

used in Swedish and other Scandinavian languages

North Germanic languages

The North Germanic languages or Scandinavian languages, the languages of Scandinavians, make up one of the three branches of the Germanic languages, a sub-family of the Indo-European languages, along with the West Germanic languages and the extinct East Germanic languages...

is Skåne, formerly in Danish

Danish language

Danish is a North Germanic language spoken by around six million people, principally in the country of Denmark. It is also spoken by 50,000 Germans of Danish ethnicity in the northern parts of Schleswig-Holstein, Germany, where it holds the status of minority language...

and Norwegian

Norwegian language

Norwegian is a North Germanic language spoken primarily in Norway, where it is the official language. Together with Swedish and Danish, Norwegian forms a continuum of more or less mutually intelligible local and regional variants .These Scandinavian languages together with the Faroese language...

spelt Skaane. The Latinized

Latinisation (literature)

Latinisation is the practice of rendering a non-Latin name in a Latin style. It is commonly met with for historical personal names, with toponyms, or for the standard binomial nomenclature of the life sciences. It goes further than Romanisation, which is the writing of a word in the Latin alphabet...

form Scania is widely used in English as an exonym. However, there are also many examples of the endonym Skåne used in English texts, sometimes as Skane with the diacritic

Diacritic

A diacritic is a glyph added to a letter, or basic glyph. The term derives from the Greek διακριτικός . Diacritic is both an adjective and a noun, whereas diacritical is only an adjective. Some diacritical marks, such as the acute and grave are often called accents...

omitted. Scania is the only Swedish province for which exonyms are still widely used in many languages, e.g. French

French language

French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...

Scanie, German

German language

German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....

Schonen, Polish

Polish language

Polish is a language of the Lechitic subgroup of West Slavic languages, used throughout Poland and by Polish minorities in other countries...

Skania, Spanish

Spanish language

Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...

Escania &c. For the province's modern administrative counterpart, Skåne län, the endonym Skåne is mostly used even in English.

Etymology

The names Scania and Scandinavia
Scandinavia
Scandinavia is a cultural, historical and ethno-linguistic region in northern Europe that includes the three kingdoms of Denmark, Norway and Sweden, characterized by their common ethno-cultural heritage and language. Modern Norway and Sweden proper are situated on the Scandinavian Peninsula,...

are considered to have the same etymology and the southernmost tip of what is today Sweden was called Scania by the Romans. The name is possibly derived from the Germanic root *Skaðin-awjo, which appears in Old Norse

Old Norse

Old Norse is a North Germanic language that was spoken by inhabitants of Scandinavia and inhabitants of their overseas settlements during the Viking Age, until about 1300....

as Skáney. According to some scholars, the Germanic stem can be reconstructed as *Skaðan- meaning "danger" or "damage" (English scathing, German Schaden). Skanör

Skanör-Falsterbo

Skanör med Falsterbo is a statistical locality , situated in Vellinge Municipality, Skåne County, Sweden with 6,861 inhabitants in 2005...

in Scania, with its long Falsterbo reef, has the same stem (skan) combined with -ör, which means "sandbanks".

In the Alfredian

Alfred the Great

Alfred the Great was King of Wessex from 871 to 899.Alfred is noted for his defence of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of southern England against the Vikings, becoming the only English monarch still to be accorded the epithet "the Great". Alfred was the first King of the West Saxons to style himself...

translation of Orosius and Wulfstan

Wulfstan of Hedeby

Wulfstan of Hedeby was a late ninth century traveller and trader. His travel accounts, as well as those of another trader, Ohthere, were included in Alfred the Great's translation of Orosius' Histories...

's travel accounts, the Old English form Sconeg appears. Frankish sources mention a place called Sconaowe; Aethelweard, an Anglo-Saxon historian, wrote about Scani; and in Beowulf

Beowulf

Beowulf , but modern scholars agree in naming it after the hero whose life is its subject." of an Old English heroic epic poem consisting of 3182 alliterative long lines, set in Scandinavia, commonly cited as one of the most important works of Anglo-Saxon literature.It survives in a single...

's fictional account, the names Scedenige and Scedeland appear as names for what appears to be a Danish land. Scodanus in old maps may add to the name of the place "from where the Danes came, from Scandinavia", also derived from it.

Administration

Like the other provinces of Sweden

Provinces of Sweden

, the province of Scania serves no administrative or political purposes, but is an exclusively historical and cultural entity.

Between 1719 and 1996 the province was subdivided in two administrative counties

Counties of Sweden

The Counties of Sweden are the first level administrative and political subdivisions of Sweden. Sweden is divided into 21 counties. The counties were established in 1634 on Count Axel Oxenstierna's initiative, superseding the historical provinces of Sweden to introduce a modern administration...

(län), Kristianstad County

Kristianstad County

Kristianstad County was a county of Sweden from 1719 to 1 January 1997 when it was merged with Malmöhus County to form Skåne County.The seat of residence for the Governor was in Kristianstad.- List of Governors :...

and Malmöhus County

Malmöhus County

Malmöhus County was a county of Sweden until 1997 when it was merged with Kristianstad County to form Skåne County.It had been named after Malmöhus, the castle in Malmö, which also was where the Governor originally resided....

each under a governor (landshövding) appointed by the central government of Sweden

Government of Sweden

The Government of the Kingdom of Sweden is the supreme executive authority of Sweden. It consists of the Prime Minister and cabinet ministers appointed by the Prime Minister. The Government is responsible for their actions to the Riksdag, which is the legislative assembly...

. When the first local government

Local government

Local government refers collectively to administrative authorities over areas that are smaller than a state.The term is used to contrast with offices at nation-state level, which are referred to as the central government, national government, or federal government...

acts took effect in 1863 each county also got an elected county council

County Councils of Sweden

A county council, or landsting, is an elected assembly of a county in Sweden. A county council is a political entity, elected by the county electorate and typically its main responsibilities lie within the public health care system. In each county there is also a county administrative board which...

(landsting). The counties were further divided into municipalities. The local government reform of 1952 reduced the number of municipalities and a second subdivision reform, carried out between 1968 and 1974 established today's 33 municipalities

Municipalities of Sweden

The municipalities of Sweden are the local government entities of Sweden. The current 290 municipalities are organized into 21 counties...

in Scania. The municipalities have municipal governments, similar to city commissions

City commission government

City commission government is a form of municipal government which once was common in the United States, but many cities which were formerly governed by commission have since switched to the council-manager form of government...

, and are further divided into parishes (församlingar). The parishes are primarily entities of the Church of Sweden

Church of Sweden

The Church of Sweden is the largest Christian church in Sweden. The church professes the Lutheran faith and is a member of the Porvoo Communion. With 6,589,769 baptized members, it is the largest Lutheran church in the world, although combined, there are more Lutherans in the member churches of...

, but they also serve as a divisioning measure for the Swedish population registration

Population registration in Sweden

Population registration in Sweden is the civil registration of vital events of the inhabitants of Sweden. The data is kept in the population registry and is administered by the Swedish Tax Agency...

and other statistical uses.

In 1997 the two counties were merged, and Skåne County has almost the same boundaries as the province. For the pre-1997 counties see map to the right, which also outlines the still valid municipal limits.

Two years later the county council areas

County Councils of Sweden

were amalgamated forming Region Skåne

Skåne Regional Council

The Skåne Regional Council is the County Council of Skåne County in Sweden.Region Skåne was created on January 1, 1999, by the amalgamation of the County councils of Malmöhus County and Kristianstad County and some of the tasks handled by Malmö Municipality.Its county assembly is the highest...

, responsible mainly for public healthcare, public transport

Public transport

Public transport is a shared passenger transportation service which is available for use by the general public, as distinct from modes such as taxicab, car pooling or hired buses which are not shared by strangers without private arrangement.Public transport modes include buses, trolleybuses, trams...

and regional planning

Regional planning

Regional planning deals with the efficient placement of land use activities, infrastructure, and settlement growth across a larger area of land than an individual city or town. The related field of urban planning deals with the specific issues of city planning...

and culture.

Heraldry

During the Danish era the province had no coat of arms

Coat of arms

A coat of arms is a unique heraldic design on a shield or escutcheon or on a surcoat or tabard used to cover and protect armour and to identify the wearer. Thus the term is often stated as "coat-armour", because it was anciently displayed on the front of a coat of cloth...

. In Sweden, however, every province had been represented by heraldic

Heraldry

Heraldry is the profession, study, or art of creating, granting, and blazoning arms and ruling on questions of rank or protocol, as exercised by an officer of arms. Heraldry comes from Anglo-Norman herald, from the Germanic compound harja-waldaz, "army commander"...

arms since 1560. When Charles X Gustav of Sweden

Charles X Gustav of Sweden

Charles X Gustav also Carl Gustav, was King of Sweden from 1654 until his death. He was the son of John Casimir, Count Palatine of Zweibrücken-Kleeburg and Catherine of Sweden. After his father's death he also succeeded him as Pfalzgraf. He was married to Hedwig Eleonora of Holstein-Gottorp, who...

suddenly died in 1660 a coat of arms had to be created for the newly acquired province, as each province was to be represented by its arms at his royal funeral. After an initiative from Baron Gustaf Bonde

Gustaf Bonde

Baron Gustaf Bonde was a Swedish statesman. He was a persistent advocate of a pacifist policy at a time when war on the slightest provocation was the watchword of every Swedish politician....

, the Lord High Treasurer of Sweden

Lord High Treasurer of Sweden

The Lord High Treasurer was a highly prominent member of the Swedish Privy Council between 1602 and 1684, excluding periods when the office was out of use...

, the coat of arms of the City of Malmö was used as a base for the new provincial arms. The Malmö coat of arms had been granted in 1437, during the Kalmar Union

Kalmar Union

The Kalmar Union is a historiographical term meaning a series of personal unions that united the three kingdoms of Denmark, Norway , and Sweden under a single monarch, though intermittently and with a population...

, by Eric of Pomerania

Eric of Pomerania

Eric of Pomerania KG was King Eric III of Norway Norwegian Eirik, King Eric VII of Denmark , and as Eric King of Sweden...

and contains a Pomerania

Pomerania

Pomerania is a historical region on the south shore of the Baltic Sea. Divided between Germany and Poland, it stretches roughly from the Recknitz River near Stralsund in the West, via the Oder River delta near Szczecin, to the mouth of the Vistula River near Gdańsk in the East...

n griffin

Griffin

The griffin, griffon, or gryphon is a legendary creature with the body of a lion and the head and wings of an eagle...

's head. To distinguish it from the city's CoA the tinctures

Tincture (heraldry)

In heraldry, tinctures are the colours used to emblazon a coat of arms. These can be divided into several categories including light tinctures called metals, dark tinctures called colours, nonstandard colours called stains, furs, and "proper". A charge tinctured proper is coloured as it would be...

were changed and the official blazon

Blazon

In heraldry and heraldic vexillology, a blazon is a formal description of a coat of arms, flag or similar emblem, from which the reader can reconstruct the appropriate image...

for the provincial arms is in English: Or
Or (heraldry)
In heraldry, Or is the tincture of gold and, together with argent , belongs to the class of light tinctures called "metals". In engravings and line drawings, it may be represented using a field of evenly spaced dots...

, a Griffin's head erased
Erasure (heraldry)
Erasure, in the language of heraldry, is the tearing off of part of a charge, leaving a jagged edge of it remaining. In blazons the concept is usually met with in the form of the adjective erased....

Gules
Gules
In heraldry, gules is the tincture with the colour red, and belongs to the class of dark tinctures called "colours". In engraving, it is sometimes depicted as a region of vertical lines or else marked with gu. as an abbreviation....

, crowned Azure
Azure
In heraldry, azure is the tincture with the colour blue, and belongs to the class of tinctures called "colours". In engraving, it is sometimes depicted as a region of horizontal lines or else marked with either az. or b. as an abbreviation....

and armed Azure, when it should be armed.

The province was divided in two administrative counties

Counties of Sweden

1719-1996. Coat of arms were created for these entities, also using the griffin motif. The new Skåne County, operative from 1 January 1997, got a CoA which is the same as the province's, but with reversed tinctures. When the county arms is shown with a Swedish royal crown, it represents the County Administrative Board, which is the regional presence of central government authority. In 1999 the two county councils

County Councils of Sweden

(landsting) were amalgamated forming Region Skåne. It is the only of its kind using a heraldic coat of arms. It is also the same as the province's and the county's, but with a golden griffin's head on a blue shield. The 33 municipalities

Municipalities of Sweden

The municipalities of Sweden are the local government entities of Sweden. The current 290 municipalities are organized into 21 counties...

within the county also have coat of arms.

The Scania Griffin has become a well-known symbol for the province and it is used also by commercial enterprises. It is e.g. included in the logotypes of the automotive manufacturer Scania AB

Scania AB

Scania Aktiebolag , commonly referred to as Scania AB or just Scania, is a major Swedish automotive industry manufacturer of commercial vehicles - specifically heavy trucks and buses...

and the airline

Airline

An airline provides air transport services for traveling passengers and freight. Airlines lease or own their aircraft with which to supply these services and may form partnerships or alliances with other airlines for mutual benefit...

Malmö Aviation

Malmö Aviation is a regional airline based in Malmö, Sweden. It operates scheduled services within Sweden from Stockholm, as well as scheduled international services to Belgium and France. Its main base is Malmö Airport, with a hub at Stockholm-Bromma Airport....

.

Coat of arms:

History

Scania was first mentioned in written texts in the 9th century. It came under Danish king Harald Bluetooth

Harald I of Denmark

Harald "Bluetooth" Gormsson was the son of King Gorm the Old and of Thyra Dannebod. He died in 985 or 986 having ruled as King of Denmark from around 958 and King of Norway for a few years probably around 970...

in the middle of the 10th century. It was, together with Blekinge

Blekinge

and Halland

Halland

' is one of the traditional provinces of Sweden , on the western coast of Sweden. It borders Västergötland, Småland, Scania and the sea of Kattegat.-Administration:...

, situated on the Scandinavian peninsula, but forming the eastern part of the kingdom of Denmark. This geographical position made it for many hundred years the focal point of the frequent Dano-Swedish war

Dano-Swedish war

Dano-Swedish War may refer to one of many wars between Denmark-Norway and Sweden:*Dano-Swedish War *Swedish War of Liberation *Northern Seven Years' War *Kalmar War *Torstenson War...

s. By the Treaty of Roskilde

Treaty of Roskilde

in 1658, all Danish lands east of Oresund were ceded to the Swedish Crown

The Crown

The Crown is a corporation sole that in the Commonwealth realms and any provincial or state sub-divisions thereof represents the legal embodiment of governance, whether executive, legislative, or judicial...

. First placed under a Governor-General the province was eventually integrated into

Sweden proper

Sweden proper, , is a term used to distinguish those territories that were fully integrated into the Kingdom of Sweden, as opposed to the dominions and possessions of, or states in union with, Sweden....

the kingdom of Sweden. The last Danish attempt to regain its lost provinces failed after the Battle of Helsingborg (1710)

Battle of Helsingborg (1710)

. In 1719 the province was subdivided in two counties

Counties of Sweden

and administered in the same way as the rest of the country. Scania has since then been fully integrated in the Swedish state.

Regional politics

There are no independence movements organized for electoral contests in Scania, although some of the small, populist

Populism

Populism can be defined as an ideology, political philosophy, or type of discourse. Generally, a common theme compares "the people" against "the elite", and urges social and political system changes. It can also be defined as a rhetorical style employed by members of various political or social...

parties with seats in various municipalities have from time to time placed secession

Secession

Secession is the act of withdrawing from an organization, union, or especially a political entity. Threats of secession also can be a strategy for achieving more limited goals.-Secession theory:...

in combination with anti-immigration measures

Opposition to immigration

Opposition to immigration is present in most nation-states with immigration, and has become a significant political issue in many countries. Immigration in the modern sense refers to movement of people from one nation-state to another, where they are not citizens. It is important to distinguish...

on their party platform

Party platform

A party platform, or platform sometimes also referred to as a manifesto, is a list of the actions which a political party, individual candidate, or other organization supports in order to appeal to the general public for the purpose of having said peoples' candidates voted into political office or...

s. A coalition of 16 small populist parties (Skånes Väl) held 6 seats of 149 in the regional council during the period 1998-2002, but in Region Skåne's 2002 election, they lost all their seats. In 2006, one of the 16 parties in the coalition, the small populist anti-immigration party Skånepartiet

Skåne Party

The Scania Party is a right-wing populist, anti-immigration political party in the Swedish province of Scania, established in 1979. The party leader, and founder, is Carl P. Herslow....

, made an unsuccessful bid for seats in the general election of Sweden

Swedish general election, 2006

A general election was held in Sweden on 17 September 2006, to elect members to the Swedish parliament. All 349 seats were up for election: 310 "fixed seats" in 29 constituencies and 39 members at a national level for what are called "adjustment seats", used to ensure that parties have...

, receiving 11 votes nationally. In the regional elections of 2006, The Scanian Independence Party ("Skånes självständighetsparti"), a coalition between Skånepartiet

Skåne Party

The Scania Party is a right-wing populist, anti-immigration political party in the Swedish province of Scania, established in 1979. The party leader, and founder, is Carl P. Herslow....

and another party called Centrum-Demokraterna, received 4623 votes.

As a part of the process of decentralization

Decentralization

__FORCETOC__Decentralization or decentralisation is the process of dispersing decision-making governance closer to the people and/or citizens. It includes the dispersal of administration or governance in sectors or areas like engineering, management science, political science, political economy,...

in Sweden, and as a part of the regionalist efforts in Scania, separatism thus plays a negligible role. According to some scholars, separatist driven activities may however run parallel with the top-down driven region-building efforts put in place to promote regional development, as well as the efforts by regional actors to promote and protect Scanian culture, and therefore, separatism may contribute to the mobilization of mutually supporting forces, especially in border areas like Scania where cross-border cooperation is important.

Decentralization

During Sweden's financial crisis in the early and mid-1990s, Scania, Västra Götaland and Norrbotten

Norrbotten

Norrbotten is a Swedish province in northernmost Sweden. It borders south to Västerbotten, west to Swedish Lapland, and east to Finland.- Administration :...

were among the hardest hit in the country, with high unemployment rates as a result. In response to the crisis, the County Governors were given a task by the government in September 1996 to co-ordinate various measures in the counties to increase economic growth and employment by bringing in regional actors. The first proposal for regional autonomy and a regional parliament had been introduced by the Social Democratic Party's local districts in Scania and Västra Götaland already in 1993. When Sweden joined the European Union

European Union

The European Union is an economic and political union of 27 independent member states which are located primarily in Europe. The EU traces its origins from the European Coal and Steel Community and the European Economic Community , formed by six countries in 1958...

two years later, the concept "Regions of Europe

Regions of Europe

Europe is often divided into regions due to geographical, cultural or historical criteria. Some common divisions are as follows.-Directional divisions:...

" came in focus and a more regionalism-friendly approach was adopted in national politics. These factors contributed to the subsequent transformation of Skåne County into one of the first "trial regions" in Sweden in 1999, established as the country's first "regional experiment".

The relatively strong regional identity in Scania is often referred to in order to explain the general support in the province for the decentralization

Decentralization

and regionalization efforts introduced by the Swedish government. On the basis of large scale interview investigations about Region Skåne in the region, scholars have found that the prevailing trend among the inhabitants of Scania is to "[look] upon their region with more positive eyes and a firm reliance that it would deliver the goods in terms of increased democracy and constructive results out of economic planning". The regionalist

Regionalism (politics)

Regionalism is a term used in international relations. Regionalism also constitutes one of the three constituents of the international commercial system...

grassroots

Grassroots

A grassroots movement is one driven by the politics of a community. The term implies that the creation of the movement and the group supporting it are natural and spontaneous, highlighting the differences between this and a movement that is orchestrated by traditional power structures...

organizations in Scania generally oppose separatism and nationalism

Nationalism

Nationalism is a political ideology that involves a strong identification of a group of individuals with a political entity defined in national terms, i.e. a nation. In the 'modernist' image of the nation, it is nationalism that creates national identity. There are various definitions for what...

, while embracing multi-culturalism, cross-border activities and Swedish EU membership.

Geography and environmental factors

The geography of Scania was shaped by the last ice age

Ice age

An ice age or, more precisely, glacial age, is a generic geological period of long-term reduction in the temperature of the Earth's surface and atmosphere, resulting in the presence or expansion of continental ice sheets, polar ice sheets and alpine glaciers...

, the Weichsel glaciation, a time when it was totally covered with ice. The relief

Terrain

Terrain, or land relief, is the vertical and horizontal dimension of land surface. When relief is described underwater, the term bathymetry is used...

of Scania's south-western landscape was formed by thick Quaternary

Quaternary

The Quaternary Period is the most recent of the three periods of the Cenozoic Era in the geologic time scale of the ICS. It follows the Neogene Period, spanning 2.588 ± 0.005 million years ago to the present...

deposits from sediment accumulation during the glaciations. Hallandsås

Hallandsås

Hallandsås is a horst on the border between the Swedish counties Skåne and Halland.It is part of a geological formation that includes an island in the sea outside the village of Torekov near Båstad called Hallands Väderö. The geological formation continues with the Linderödsåsen in Skåne. It was...

en and Söderåsen

Söderåsen

Söderåsen is a ridge in the province of Scania in southern Sweden. The highest point is 212 meters. It is intersected by several fissure valleys....

are major landmarks but, contrary to popular belief, they are not ridges left behind by the retreating ice but horsts formed by inversion tectonic activity along the Tornquist Tectonic zone in the late Cretaceous

Late Cretaceous

The Late Cretaceous is the younger of two epochs into which the Cretaceous period is divided in the geologic timescale. Rock strata from this epoch form the Upper Cretaceous series...

. The Scanian horsts run in a North-West to South-West direction, marking the southwest border of Fennoscandia

Fennoscandia

Fennoscandia and Fenno-Scandinavia are geographic and geological terms used to describe the Scandinavian Peninsula, the Kola Peninsula, Karelia and Finland...

.

Unlike some of the other regions of Sweden, the Scanian landscape is not mountainous. With the exception of the lake-rich and densely forested northern parts (Göinge

Göinge

Göinge may refer to:*Östra Göinge Municipality, a municipality in Skåne County*Göinge Eastern Hundred, a hundred in Scania*Göinge Western Hundred, a hundred in Scania*Göinge Mekaniska, one of the leading Swedish steel building companies...

), the rolling hills in the north-west (the Bjäre and Kulla

Kullaberg

Kullaberg is a nature reserve situated on a peninsula of land protruding into the Kattegat in Höganäs Municipality near the town of Mölle in southwest Sweden. The site in the province of Skåne is an area of considerable biodiversity supporting a number of rare species and has been designated as an...

peninsulas) and the beech-wood clad areas extending from the slopes of the horsts, a sizeable portion of Scania's terrain consists of plain

Plain

In geography, a plain is land with relatively low relief, that is flat or gently rolling. Prairies and steppes are types of plains, and the archetype for a plain is often thought of as a grassland, but plains in their natural state may also be covered in shrublands, woodland and forest, or...

s. Its low profile and open landscape distinguish Scania from most other geographical regions of Sweden which consist mainly of waterway-rich, cool, mixed coniferous forests, boreal taiga

Taiga

Taiga , also known as the boreal forest, is a biome characterized by coniferous forests.Taiga is the world's largest terrestrial biome. In North America it covers most of inland Canada and Alaska as well as parts of the extreme northern continental United States and is known as the Northwoods...

and alpine tundra

Alpine tundra

Alpine tundra is a natural region that does not contain trees because it is at high altitude. Alpine tundra is distinguished from arctic tundra, because alpine soils are generally better drained than arctic soils...

. Stretching from the north-western to the south-eastern parts of Scania is a belt of deciduous

Deciduous

Deciduous means "falling off at maturity" or "tending to fall off", and is typically used in reference to trees or shrubs that lose their leaves seasonally, and to the shedding of other plant structures such as petals after flowering or fruit when ripe...

forests following the Linderödsåsen

Linderödsåsen

The Linderödsåsen is a ridge, geologically a horst, in the province of Skåne in southernmost Sweden. It lies at the edge of the Baltic shield, in the Tornquist zone, and continues with the Hallandsås in north western direction towards the Kattegat....

ridge and previously marking the border between Malmöhus County and Kristianstad County. The much denser fir

Fir

Firs are a genus of 48–55 species of evergreen conifers in the family Pinaceae. They are found through much of North and Central America, Europe, Asia, and North Africa, occurring in mountains over most of the range...

forests—so typical of the greater part of Sweden—are only found in the north-eastern Göinge

Göinge

parts of Scania along the border with the forest dominated province of Småland

Småland

.

The two major plains, Söderslätt in the south-west and Österlen

Österlen

Österlen is the southeastern part of the Swedish province of Scania. The name derives from its location 'east of the route' ; 'Öster om len' . The principal town of Österlen is Simrishamn...

in the south-east, consist of highly fertile agricultural land—the yield per unit area is higher than in any other region in Sweden. The Scanian plains are an important resource for the rest of Sweden since between 25-50% of the total production of various types of cereals come from the region. In addition, close to 90% of Sweden's sugar beet

Sugar beet

Sugar beet, a cultivated plant of Beta vulgaris, is a plant whose tuber contains a high concentration of sucrose. It is grown commercially for sugar production. Sugar beets and other B...

is grown in Scania. The soil is among the most fertile in the world.

The Kullaberg

Kullaberg

Nature Preserve in northwest Scania is home to several rare species

Rare species

A rare species is a group of organisms that are very uncommon or scarce. This designation may be applied to either a plant or animal taxon, and may be distinct from the term "endangered" or "threatened species" but not "extinct"....

including Spring vetchling, Lathyrus
Lathyrus
Lathyrus is a genus of flowering plant species known as sweet peas and vetchlings. Lathyrus is in the legume family Fabaceae and contains approximately 160 species. They are native to temperate areas, with a breakdown of 52 species in Europe, 30 species in North America, 78 in Asia, 24 in...

sphaericus.

National parks

Three of the 29 National parks of Sweden are situated in Scania.

Dalby Söderskog
Stenshuvud
Söderåsen

Extremes

Southernmost point: Smygehuk
Smygehuk
Smygehuk is a harbour and fishing village near Trelleborg in Skåne, Sweden. It's most known for being the southernmost point of Sweden and the Scandinavian Peninsula . To the west of the harbour is Smygehuk Lighthouse and Smygehuk Hostel....

, Trelleborg Municipality
Trelleborg Municipality
Trelleborg Municipality is the southernmost municipality of Sweden, in Skåne County. Its seat is located in the city Trelleborg....

, (55° 20' N) (also the southernmost point of Sweden)
Northernmost point: Gränsholmen, Osby Municipality
Osby Municipality
Osby Municipality is a municipality in Skåne County in Sweden. Its seat is located in the town of Osby.The amalgamation during the 1970s' local government reform took place in the area on January 1, 1974, when the former market town Osby was merged with three adjacent rural...
Westernmost point: Kulla udd, Höganäs Municipality
Höganäs Municipality
Höganäs Municipality is one of 290 municipalities of Sweden, in Skåne County in the southern part of the country. Its seat is located in the city of Höganäs....
Easternmost point: Nyhult, Bromölla Municipality
Bromölla Municipality
Bromölla Municipality is a municipality in Skåne County in southern Sweden. Its seat is located in the town Bromölla.Bromölla was in 1967 reunited with Ivetofta...

Highest point: Söderåsen
Söderåsen
Söderåsen is a ridge in the province of Scania in southern Sweden. The highest point is 212 meters. It is intersected by several fissure valleys....

, 212 metres
Lowest spot: Kristianstad
Kristianstad
Kristianstad is a city and the seat of Kristianstad Municipality, Skåne County, Sweden with 35,711 inhabitants in 2010.-History:The city was founded in 1614 by King Christian IV of Denmark, the city's name literally means 'Town of Christian', as a planned city after the burning of the town of Vä...

, -2.7 metres (also the lowest spot in all of Sweden)

Largest lake: Ivösjön
Ivö Lake
Ivö Lake is the largest and deepest lake of Skåne, Sweden, located in the municipalities of Kristianstad and Bromölla in the northeastern part of Skåne County. It covers an area of just under 55 km², with a maximum depth of 50 meters...

, 55 km²
Largest island: Ven, 7,5 km²

Population development

It has been estimated that around 1570, Scania had about 110,000 inhabitants. The figures here are from two different sources.

Year	Population	Year	Population	Year	Population
1620	126,000	1820	312,000	1930	757,000
1699	142,000	1830	350,000	1940	778,000
1718	152,000	1840	388,000	1950	843,000
1735	180,000	1850	443,000	1960	882,000
1750	197,000	1860	494,000	1970	983,000
1760	202,000	1870	538,000	1980	1,023,000
1772	216,000	1880	580,000	1990	1,068,000
1780	231,000	1890	591,000	2000	1,129,000
1795	250,000	1900	628,000	2010	1,228,000
1800	259,000	1910	685,000
1810	275,000	1920	728,000

Cities

In 1658 the following ten places in Scania were chartered and held town rights: Lund

Lund

-Main sights:During the 12th and 13th centuries, when the town was the seat of the archbishop, many churches and monasteries were built. At its peak, Lund had 27 churches, but most of them were demolished as result of the Reformation in 1536. Several medieval buildings remain, including Lund...

(since approximately 990), Helsingborg

Helsingborg

Helsingborg is a city and the seat of Helsingborg Municipality, Skåne County, Sweden with 97,122 inhabitants in 2010. Helsingborg is the centre of an area in the Øresund region of about 320,000 inhabitants in north-west Scania, and is Sweden's closest point to Denmark, with the Danish city...

(1085), Falsterbo

Falsterbo

Falsterbo is a town located at the south-western tip of Sweden in Vellinge Municipality in Skåne County. Falsterbo is situated in the southern part of the Falsterbo peninsula. It is part of Skanör med Falsterbo, one of Sweden's historical cities.-History:...

(approximately 1200), Ystad

Ystad

Ystad is a "locality", or town, and the seat of Ystad Municipality, Skåne County, Sweden, with 17,286 inhabitants .Settlement dates back to the 11th century and the town has become a busy ferryport, local administrative centre and tourist attraction...

(approximately 1200), Skanör

Skanör

Skanör is a town in Vellinge Municipality and part of the conurbation Skanör med Falsterbo in southwestern Scania, Sweden. City facilities include hotels, restaurants, a harbour, an old church and an elementary school. A greenbelt called Skanörs vångar will be a new residential area in Skanör.-The...

(approximately 1200), Malmö

Malmö

Malmö , in the southernmost province of Scania, is the third most populous city in Sweden, after Stockholm and Gothenburg.Malmö is the seat of Malmö Municipality and the capital of Skåne County...

(approximately 1250), Simrishamn

Simrishamn

Simrishamn is a locality and the seat of Simrishamn Municipality, Skåne County, Sweden with 6,546 inhabitants in 2005. Simrishamn is, despite its small population, for historical reasons normally still referred to as a city....

(approximately 1300), Landskrona

Landskrona

Landskrona is a locality and the seat of Landskrona Municipality, Skåne County, Sweden with 28,670 inhabitants in 2005.-History:The city of Landskrona was founded at the location of Scania's best natural harbour, as a means of King Eric of Pomerania's anti-Hanseatic policy, intended to compete...

(1413), and Kristianstad

Kristianstad

Kristianstad is a city and the seat of Kristianstad Municipality, Skåne County, Sweden with 35,711 inhabitants in 2010.-History:The city was founded in 1614 by King Christian IV of Denmark, the city's name literally means 'Town of Christian', as a planned city after the burning of the town of Vä...

(1622). Others had existed earlier, but lost their privileges. Ängelholm

Ängelholm

Ängelholm is a locality and the seat of Ängelholm Municipality in Skåne County, Sweden with 22,532 inhabitants in 2005.It is known for its clay cuckoos — a special kind of ocarina. This is however a dying tradition as there is now only one producer of clay cuckoos, Sofia Nilsson.Tourism is an...

got new privileges in 1767, and in 1754 Falsterbo and Skanör were merged. The concept of municipalities

Municipalities of Sweden

The municipalities of Sweden are the local government entities of Sweden. The current 290 municipalities are organized into 21 counties...

was introduced in Sweden in 1863, making each of the towns a city municipality of its own. In the 19th and 20th centuries four more municipalities were granted city status, Trelleborg

Trelleborg

Trelleborg is a locality and the seat of Trelleborg Municipality, Skåne County, Sweden with 25,643 inhabitants in 2005. It is the southernmost town in Sweden.-History:...

(1867), Eslöv

Eslöv

Eslöv is a city and the seat of Eslöv Municipality, Skåne County, Sweden with 16,551 inhabitants in 2005.Eslöv is part of the Øresund Region and is today largely serving as a suburb of Malmö and Lund.-History:...

(1911), Hässleholm

Hässleholm

Hässleholm is a locality and the seat of Hässleholm Municipality, Skåne County, Sweden with 17,730 inhabitants in 2005.-Overview:Hässleholm was gradually developed from 1860 in connection with the construction of the main Stockholm to Malmö railway line. There was no settlement on the spot before...

(1914) and Höganäs

Höganäs

Höganäs is a locality and the seat of Höganäs Municipality, Skåne County, Sweden with 13,550 inhabitants in 2005.Höganäs is nationally known for its ceramics industry, Höganäs Keramik. Höganäs Keramik is part of Iittala Group....

(1936). The system with city status was abolished in 1971.

Over 90% of Scania's population live in urban areas. In 2000, the Öresund bridge

Oresund Bridge

The Øresund or Öresund Bridge is a combined twin-track railway and dual carriageway bridge-tunnel across the Øresund strait.The bridge connects Sweden and Denmark, and it is the longest road and rail bridge in Europe. The Øresund Bridge also connects two major Metropolitan Areas: those of the...

—the longest combined road and rail bridge in Europe—linked Malmö

Malmö

Malmö , in the southernmost province of Scania, is the third most populous city in Sweden, after Stockholm and Gothenburg.Malmö is the seat of Malmö Municipality and the capital of Skåne County...

and Copenhagen

Copenhagen

Copenhagen is the capital and largest city of Denmark, with an urban population of 1,199,224 and a metropolitan population of 1,930,260 . With the completion of the transnational Øresund Bridge in 2000, Copenhagen has become the centre of the increasingly integrating Øresund Region...

, making Scania's population part of a 3.6 million total population in the Öresund Region

Oresund Region

. In 2005, the region had 9,200 commuters crossing the bridge daily, the vast majority of them from Malmö to Copenhagen.

The following localities had more than 10,000 inhabitants within the boundaries of 2005:

Malmö
Malmö
Malmö , in the southernmost province of Scania, is the third most populous city in Sweden, after Stockholm and Gothenburg.Malmö is the seat of Malmö Municipality and the capital of Skåne County...

, 258,020
Helsingborg
Helsingborg
Helsingborg is a city and the seat of Helsingborg Municipality, Skåne County, Sweden with 97,122 inhabitants in 2010. Helsingborg is the centre of an area in the Øresund region of about 320,000 inhabitants in north-west Scania, and is Sweden's closest point to Denmark, with the Danish city...

, 91,457
Lund
Lund
-Main sights:During the 12th and 13th centuries, when the town was the seat of the archbishop, many churches and monasteries were built. At its peak, Lund had 27 churches, but most of them were demolished as result of the Reformation in 1536. Several medieval buildings remain, including Lund...

, 76,188
Kristianstad
Kristianstad
Kristianstad is a city and the seat of Kristianstad Municipality, Skåne County, Sweden with 35,711 inhabitants in 2010.-History:The city was founded in 1614 by King Christian IV of Denmark, the city's name literally means 'Town of Christian', as a planned city after the burning of the town of Vä...

, 33,083
Landskrona
Landskrona
Landskrona is a locality and the seat of Landskrona Municipality, Skåne County, Sweden with 28,670 inhabitants in 2005.-History:The city of Landskrona was founded at the location of Scania's best natural harbour, as a means of King Eric of Pomerania's anti-Hanseatic policy, intended to compete...

, 28,670
Trelleborg
Trelleborg
Trelleborg is a locality and the seat of Trelleborg Municipality, Skåne County, Sweden with 25,643 inhabitants in 2005. It is the southernmost town in Sweden.-History:...

, 25,643
Ängelholm
Ängelholm
Ängelholm is a locality and the seat of Ängelholm Municipality in Skåne County, Sweden with 22,532 inhabitants in 2005.It is known for its clay cuckoos — a special kind of ocarina. This is however a dying tradition as there is now only one producer of clay cuckoos, Sofia Nilsson.Tourism is an...

, 22,532
Hässleholm
Hässleholm
Hässleholm is a locality and the seat of Hässleholm Municipality, Skåne County, Sweden with 17,730 inhabitants in 2005.-Overview:Hässleholm was gradually developed from 1860 in connection with the construction of the main Stockholm to Malmö railway line. There was no settlement on the spot before...

, 17,730
Ystad
Ystad
Ystad is a "locality", or town, and the seat of Ystad Municipality, Skåne County, Sweden, with 17,286 inhabitants .Settlement dates back to the 11th century and the town has become a busy ferryport, local administrative centre and tourist attraction...

, 17,286
Eslöv
Eslöv
Eslöv is a city and the seat of Eslöv Municipality, Skåne County, Sweden with 16,551 inhabitants in 2005.Eslöv is part of the Øresund Region and is today largely serving as a suburb of Malmö and Lund.-History:...

, 16,551
Staffanstorp
Staffanstorp
Staffanstorp is a locality and the seat of Staffanstorp Municipality, Skåne County, Sweden with 13,783 inhabitants in 2005. Of the Scanian towns that never acquired town privileges before abolished in Sweden in 1971, Staffanstorp is the largest.-History:...

, 13,783
Höganäs
Höganäs
Höganäs is a locality and the seat of Höganäs Municipality, Skåne County, Sweden with 13,550 inhabitants in 2005.Höganäs is nationally known for its ceramics industry, Höganäs Keramik. Höganäs Keramik is part of Iittala Group....

, 13,401
Höllviken
Höllviken
Höllviken is a locality situated in Vellinge Municipality, Skåne County, Sweden with 10,014 inhabitants in 2005. It is located close to both Malmö and the Øresund Bridge which connects Sweden and Denmark....

, 10,014

Hundreds

Scania was formerly divided into 23 hundreds.

Culture

Scania's long-running and sometimes intense trade relations with other communities along the coast of the European continent through history have made the culture of Scania distinct from other geographical regions of Sweden. Its open landscape, often described as a colourful patchwork quilt of wheat

Wheat

Wheat is a cereal grain, originally from the Levant region of the Near East, but now cultivated worldwide. In 2007 world production of wheat was 607 million tons, making it the third most-produced cereal after maize and rice...

and rape

Rapeseed

Rapeseed , also known as rape, oilseed rape, rapa, rappi, rapaseed is a bright yellow flowering member of the family Brassicaceae...

fields, and the relatively mild climate at the southern tip of the Scandinavian peninsula, have inspired many Swedish artists and authors to compare it to European regions like Provence

Provence

Provence ; Provençal: Provença in classical norm or Prouvènço in Mistralian norm) is a region of south eastern France on the Mediterranean adjacent to Italy. It is part of the administrative région of Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur...

in southern France

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

and Zeeland

Zeeland

Zeeland , also called Zealand in English, is the westernmost province of the Netherlands. The province, located in the south-west of the country, consists of a number of islands and a strip bordering Belgium. Its capital is Middelburg. With a population of about 380,000, its area is about...

in the Netherlands

Netherlands

The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...

. Among the many authors who have described the "foreign" continental elements of the Scanian landscape, diet and customs are August Strindberg

August Strindberg

Johan August Strindberg was a Swedish playwright, novelist, poet, essayist and painter. A prolific writer who often drew directly on his personal experience, Strindberg's career spanned four decades, during which time he wrote over 60 plays and more than 30 works of fiction, autobiography,...

and Carl Linnaeus. In 1893 August Strindberg wrote about Scania: "In beautiful, large wave lines, the fields undulate down toward the lake; a small deciduous forest limits the coastline, which is given the inviting look of the Riviera, where people shall walk in the sun, protected from the north wind. [...] The Swede leaves the plains with a certain sense of comfort, because its beauty is foreign to him." In another chapter he states: "The Swedes have a history that is not the history of the South Scandinavians. It must be just as foreign as Vasa’s

House of Vasa

The House of Vasa was the Royal House of Sweden 1523-1654 and of Poland 1587-1668. It originated from a noble family in Uppland of which several members had high offices during the 15th century....

history is to the Scanian."

In Ystad

Ystad

singer-songwriter Michael Saxell

Michael Saxell

Michael Saxell is a singer-songwriter, composer, lyricist, multi-instrumentalist and producer. He was born in Helsingborg, Sweden but has spent many years on the Canadian west coast...

's popular Scanian anthem Om himlen och Österlen (Of Heaven and Österlen), the flat, rolling hill landscape is described as appearing to be a little closer to heaven and the big, unending sky.

Scania's historical connection to Denmark, the vast fertile plain

Plain

s, the deciduous

Deciduous

forests and the relatively mild climate make the province culturally and physically distinct from the emblematic

National emblem

A national emblem symbolically represents a nation. Most national emblems originate in the natural world, such as animals or birds, but another object may serve. National emblems may appear on many things such as the national flag, coat of arms, or other patriotic materials...

Swedish cultural landscape

Cultural landscape

Cultural Landscapes have been defined by the World Heritage Committee as distinct geographical areas or properties uniquely "..represent[ing] the combined work of nature and of man.."....

of forests

Taiga

and small hamlets

Hamlet (place)

A hamlet is usually a rural settlement which is too small to be considered a village, though sometimes the word is used for a different sort of community. Historically, when a hamlet became large enough to justify building a church, it was then classified as a village...

Architecture

Traditional Scanian architecture is shaped by the limited availability of wood; it incorporates different applications of the building technique called half-timbering. In the cities, the infill of the façades consisted of bricks, whereas the country-side half-timbered houses had infill made of clay and straw. Unlike many other Scanian towns, the town of Ystad

Ystad

has managed to preserve a rather large core of its half-timbered architecture in the city center—over 300 half-timbered houses still exist today. Many of the houses in Ystad were built in the renaissance style that was common in the entire Oresund Region

Oresund Region

, and which has also been preserved in Elsinore

Elsinore

Helsingør is a city and the municipal seat of Helsingør municipality on the northeast coast of the island of Zealand in eastern Denmark. Helsingør has a population of 46,279 including the southern suburbs of Snekkersten and Espergærde...

(Helsingør). Among Ystad's half-timbered houses is the oldest such building in Scandinavia, Pilgrändshuset from 1480.

In Göinge

Göinge

, located in the northern part of Scania, the architecture was not shaped by a scarcity of wood

Wood

Wood is a hard, fibrous tissue found in many trees. It has been used for hundreds of thousands of years for both fuel and as a construction material. It is an organic material, a natural composite of cellulose fibers embedded in a matrix of lignin which resists compression...

, and the pre-17th century farms consisted of graying, recumbent timber buildings around a small grass and cobblestone courtyard. Only a small number of the original Göinge farms remain today. During two campaigns, the first in 1612 by Gustav II Adolf and the second by Charles XI in the 1680s, entire districts were levelled by fire. In Örkened Parish, in what is now eastern Osby Municipality

Osby Municipality

Osby Municipality is a municipality in Skåne County in Sweden. Its seat is located in the town of Osby.The amalgamation during the 1970s' local government reform took place in the area on January 1, 1974, when the former market town Osby was merged with three adjacent rural...

, the buildings were destroyed to punish the different villages for their protection of members of the Snapphane

Snapphane

A snapphane was a member of a 17th century pro-Danish guerrilla organization that fought against the Swedes in the Second Northern and Scanian Wars, primarily in the former eastern Danish provinces which in the course of these wars became southern Sweden....

movement in the late 17th century. An original, 17th century Göinge farm, Sporrakulla Farm, has been preserved in a forest called Kullaskogen, a nature reserve

Nature reserve

A nature reserve is a protected area of importance for wildlife, flora, fauna or features of geological or other special interest, which is reserved and managed for conservation and to provide special opportunities for study or research...

close to Glimåkra in Östra Göinge. According to the local legend, the farmer saved the farm in the first raid of 1612 by setting a forest fire in front of it, making the Swedish troops believe that the farm had already been plundered and set ablaze.

A number of Scanian towns flourished during the Viking Age

Viking Age

Viking Age is the term for the period in European history, especially Northern European and Scandinavian history, spanning the late 8th to 11th centuries. Scandinavian Vikings explored Europe by its oceans and rivers through trade and warfare. The Vikings also reached Iceland, Greenland,...

. The city of Lund

Lund

is believed to have been founded by the Viking-king Sweyn Forkbeard. Scanian craftsmen and traders were prospering during this era and Denmark's first and largest mint was established in Lund. The first Scanian coins have been dated to 870 AD. The archaeological excavations performed in the city indicate that the oldest known stave church

Stave church

A stave church is a medieval wooden church with a post and beam construction related to timber framing. The wall frames are filled with vertical planks. The load-bearing posts have lent their name to the building technique...

in Scania was built by Sweyn Forkbeard in Lund in 990. In 1103, Lund was made the archbishopric for all of Scandinavia.

Many of the old churches in today's Scanian landscape stem from the medieval age, although many church renovations, extensions and destruction of older buildings took place in the 16th and 19th century. From those that have kept features of the authentic style, it is still possible to see how the medieval, Romanesque

Romanesque architecture

Romanesque architecture is an architectural style of Medieval Europe characterised by semi-circular arches. There is no consensus for the beginning date of the Romanesque architecture, with proposals ranging from the 6th to the 10th century. It developed in the 12th century into the Gothic style,...

or Renaissance churches of Danish Scania looked like. Many Scanian churches have distinctive Crow-stepped gable

Crow-stepped gable

A Stepped gable, Crow-stepped gable, or Corbie step is a stair-step type of design at the top of the triangular gable-end of a building...

s and sturdy church porches, usually made of stone.

The first version of Lund Cathedral

Lund Cathedral

The Lund Cathedral is the Lutheran cathedral in Lund, Scania, Sweden. It is the seat of the bishop of Lund of the Church of Sweden.- History :...

was built in 1050, in sandstone

Sandstone

Sandstone is a sedimentary rock composed mainly of sand-sized minerals or rock grains.Most sandstone is composed of quartz and/or feldspar because these are the most common minerals in the Earth's crust. Like sand, sandstone may be any colour, but the most common colours are tan, brown, yellow,...

from Höör

Höör

Höör is a locality and the seat of Höör Municipality, Skåne County, Sweden with 7,379 inhabitants in 2005.The unusual spelling with double "ö", was implemented by the Swedish postal service in the beginning of the 20th century. At that time it was common that, on local letters, the place of...

, on the initiative of Canute the Holy. The oldest parts of today's cathedral are from 1085, but the actual cathedral was constructed during the first part of the 12th century with the help of stone cutters and sculptors from the Rhine valley and Italy

Italy

Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

, and was ready for use in 1123. It was consecrated in 1145 and for the next 400 years, Lund became the ecclesiastical power center for Scandinavia and one of the most important cities in Denmark. The cathedral was altered in the 16th century by architect Adam van Düren and later by Carl Georg Brunius

Carl Georg Brunius

Carl Georg Brunius was a classical scholar, art historian, archaeologist and architect working in the university town of Lund in southern Sweden....

and Helgo Zetterwall.

Scania also has churches built in the gothic

Gothic architecture

Gothic architecture is a style of architecture that flourished during the high and late medieval period. It evolved from Romanesque architecture and was succeeded by Renaissance architecture....

style, such as Saint Petri Church in Malmö

Malmö

Malmö , in the southernmost province of Scania, is the third most populous city in Sweden, after Stockholm and Gothenburg.Malmö is the seat of Malmö Municipality and the capital of Skåne County...

, dating from the early 14th century. Similar buildings can be found in all Hansa

Hansa

The Hanseatic League, known as Hansa or Hanse in various Germanic languages, was a 13th–17th century alliance of European trading cities...

cities around the Baltic Sea

Baltic Sea

(such as Helsingborg

Helsingborg

and Rostock

Rostock

Rostock -Early history:In the 11th century Polabian Slavs founded a settlement at the Warnow river called Roztoc ; the name Rostock is derived from that designation. The Danish king Valdemar I set the town aflame in 1161.Afterwards the place was settled by German traders...

). The parishes in the countryside did not have the means for such extravagant buildings. Possibly the most notable countryside church is the ancient and untouched stone church in Dalby

Dalby, Skåne, Sweden

Dalby is a locality situated in Lund Municipality, Skåne County, Sweden with 5,708 inhabitants in 2010. It is located about 10 km east-south-east of Lund, and about 20 km east-north-east of Malmö....

. It is the oldest stone church in Sweden, built around the same time as Lund cathedral. After the Lund Cathedral was built, many of the involved workers travelled
around the province and used their acquired skills to make baptism fonts, paintings and decorations, and naturally architectural constructions.

Scania has 240 castles and country estates—more than any other province in Sweden. Many of them received their current shape during the 16th century, when new or remodelled castles started to appear in greater numbers, often erected by the reuse of stones and material from the original 11th–15th century castles and abbeys found at the estates. Between 1840 and 1900, the landed nobility

Landed nobility

Landed nobility is a category of nobility in various countries over the history, for which landownership was part of their noble privileges. Their character depends on the country.*Landed gentry is the landed nobility in the United Kingdom and Ireland....

in Scania built and rebuilt many of the castles again, often by modernizing previous buildings at the same location in a style that became typical for Scania. The style is a mixture of different architectural influences of the era, but frequently refers back to the style of the 16th century castles of the Reformation era, a time when the large estates of the Catholic Church were made Crown property and the abbeys bartered or sold to members of the aristocracy by the Danish king. For many of the 19th century remodels, Danish architects were called in. According to some scholars, the driving force behind the use of historical Scanian architecture, as interpreted by 19th century Danish architects using Dutch Renaissance style, was a wish to refer back to an earlier era when the aristocracy had special privileges and political power in relation to the Danish king.

Language, literature and art

Scanian dialects have various local native idioms and speech patterns, and realizes diphthongs and South Scandinavian Uvular trill

Uvular trill

The uvular trill is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , a small capital R...

, as opposed to the supradental /r/-sound characteristic of spoken Standard Swedish

Standard Swedish

Standard Swedish denotes Swedish as a spoken and written standard language. While Swedish as a written language is uniform and standardized, the spoken standard may vary considerably from region to region...

. They are very similar to the dialect of Danish

Danish language

spoken in Bornholm

Bornholm

Bornholm is a Danish island in the Baltic Sea located to the east of the rest of Denmark, the south of Sweden, and the north of Poland. The main industries on the island include fishing, arts and crafts like glass making and pottery using locally worked clay, and dairy farming. Tourism is...

, Denmark

Denmark

. The prosody

Prosody (linguistics)

In linguistics, prosody is the rhythm, stress, and intonation of speech. Prosody may reflect various features of the speaker or the utterance: the emotional state of the speaker; the form of the utterance ; the presence of irony or sarcasm; emphasis, contrast, and focus; or other elements of...

of the Scanian dialects has more in common with German

German language

, Danish

Danish language

and Dutch

Dutch language

Dutch is a West Germanic language and the native language of the majority of the population of the Netherlands, Belgium, and Suriname, the three member states of the Dutch Language Union. Most speakers live in the European Union, where it is a first language for about 23 million and a second...

(and sometimes also with English

English language

English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...

, although to a lesser extent) than with the prosody of central Swedish dialects.

Famous Scanian authors include Victoria Benedictsson

Victoria Benedictsson

Victoria Benedictsson was a Swedish author. She was born as Victoria Maria Bruzelius in Domme, a village in the province of Skåne. She wrote under the pen name Ernst Ahlgren....

, (1850–1888) from Domme, Trelleborg

Trelleborg Municipality

Trelleborg Municipality is the southernmost municipality of Sweden, in Skåne County. Its seat is located in the city Trelleborg....

, who wrote about the inequality of women in the 19th century society, but who also authored regional stories about Scania, such as From Skåne of 1884; Ola Hansson

Ola Hansson

Ola Hansson was a Swedish poet, prose writer, and critic.- Biography :...

(1860–1925) from Hönsinge, Trelleborg; Vilhelm Ekelund

Vilhelm Ekelund

Vilhelm Ekelund was a Swedish poet.The works of Ekelund were influenced by Friedrich Hölderlin, Friedrich Nietzsche, and Emanuel Swedenborg...

(1880–1949) from Stehag, Eslöv

Eslöv

; Fritiof Nilsson Piraten

Fritiof Nilsson Piraten

Fritiof Nilsson Piraten , born Nils Fritiof Adam Nilsson was a Swedish author, from the south-most province Skåne, which plays an important role in many of his books....

(1895–1972) from Vollsjö, Sjöbo

Sjöbo

Sjöbo is a locality and the seat of Sjöbo Municipality in Skåne County, Sweden with 6,364 inhabitants in 2005.-Overview:Sjöbo started growing when it became a halt on the railway between Malmö and Simrishamn in the early 20th century...

; Hjalmar Gullberg

Hjalmar Gullberg

Hjalmar Gullberg was a Swedish writer, poet and translator of Greek drama into Swedish.Gullberg was born in Malmö, Skåne. As a student at Lund University, he was the editor of the student magazine Lundagård. He was the manager of the Swedish Radio Theatre 1936-1950...

(1898–1961) from Malmö

Malmö

Malmö , in the southernmost province of Scania, is the third most populous city in Sweden, after Stockholm and Gothenburg.Malmö is the seat of Malmö Municipality and the capital of Skåne County...

; Artur Lundkvist

Artur Lundkvist

Artur Lundkvist was a Swedish writer, poet and literary critic. He was a member of the Swedish Academy from 1968....

(1906–1991) from Hagstad, Perstorp

Perstorp

Perstorp is a locality and the seat of Perstorp Municipality in Skåne County, Sweden with 5,468 inhabitants in 2005. It is twinned with Newton Aycliffe, a town in the North-East of England.- References :...

; Hans Alfredsson (born 1931) and Jacques Werup

Jacques Werup

Jacques Werup, born January 14, 1945 in Malmö, is a Swedish musician, author, poet, stage artist and screenwriter. Werup's poetry is often associated to jazz. He was a childhood friend of Mikael Wiehe and Göran Skytte and had his first novel published in 1971...

(born 1945), both from Malmö. Birgitta Trotzig

Birgitta Trotzig

Birgitta Trotzig was a Swedish writer who was elected to the Swedish Academy in 1993. She was one of Sweden's most celebrated authors, and wrote prose fiction and non-fiction, as well as prose poetry.-Biography:...

(born 1929) from Gothenburg

Gothenburg

Gothenburg is the second-largest city in Sweden and the fifth-largest in the Nordic countries. Situated on the west coast of Sweden, the city proper has a population of 519,399, with 549,839 in the urban area and total of 937,015 inhabitants in the metropolitan area...

has written several historic novels set in Scania, such as The Exposed of 1957, which describes life in 17th century Scania with a primitive country priest as its main character and the 1961 novel A Tale from the Coast, which recounts a legend about human suffering and is set in Scania in the 15th century. Gabriel Jönsson

Gabriel Jönsson

Gabriel Jönsson was a Swedish author and poet, best known for his works inspired by Öresund and farming.- Gabriel Jönsson :...

, (1892–1984) from Ålabodarna, Landskrona;

A printing-house was established in the city of Malmö in 1528. It became instrumental in the propagation of new ideas and during the 16th century, Malmö became the center for the Danish reformation.

Scanian culture, as expressed through the medium of textile art, has received international attention during the last decade. The art form, often referred to as Scanian Marriage Weavings, flourished from 1750 for a period of 100 years, after which it slowly vanished. Consisting of small textile panels mainly created for wedding ceremonies, the art is strongly symbolic, often expressing ideas about fertility, longevity and a sense of hope and joy. The Scanian artists were female weavers working at home, who had learned to weave at a young age, often in order to have a marriage chest filled with beautiful tapestries as a dowry

Dowry

A dowry is the money, goods, or estate that a woman brings forth to the marriage. It contrasts with bride price, which is paid to the bride's parents, and dower, which is property settled on the bride herself by the groom at the time of marriage. The same culture may simultaneously practice both...

.

According to international collectors and art scholars, the Scanian patterns are of special interest for the striking similarities with Roman

Ancient Rome

Ancient Rome was a thriving civilization that grew on the Italian Peninsula as early as the 8th century BC. Located along the Mediterranean Sea and centered on the city of Rome, it expanded to one of the largest empires in the ancient world....

, Byzantine

Byzantine

Byzantine usually refers to the Roman Empire during the Middle Ages.Byzantine may also refer to:* A citizen of the Byzantine Empire, or native Greek during the Middle Ages...

and Asia

Asia

Asia is the world's largest and most populous continent, located primarily in the eastern and northern hemispheres. It covers 8.7% of the Earth's total surface area and with approximately 3.879 billion people, it hosts 60% of the world's current human population...

n art. The designs are studied by art historians tracing how portable decorative goods served as transmitters of art concepts from culture to culture, influencing designs and patterns along the entire length of the ancient trade routes. The Scanian textiles show how goods traded along the Silk Road

Silk Road

The Silk Road or Silk Route refers to a historical network of interlinking trade routes across the Afro-Eurasian landmass that connected East, South, and Western Asia with the Mediterranean and European world, as well as parts of North and East Africa...

brought Copt

Copt

The Copts are the native Egyptian Christians , a major ethnoreligious group in Egypt....

ic, Anatolia

Anatolia

Anatolia is a geographic and historical term denoting the westernmost protrusion of Asia, comprising the majority of the Republic of Turkey...

n, and Chinese

China

Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...

designs and symbols into the folk art of far away regions like Scania, where they were reinterpreted and integrated into the local culture. Some of the most ancient designs in Scanian textile art are pairs of birds facing a tree with a "Great Bird" above, often symbolized simply by its wings. Regionally derived iconography include mythological Scanian river horses in red , with horns on their foreheads and misty clouds from their nostrils. The horse motif has been traced to patterns on 4th and 5th century Egyptian fabrics, but in Scanian art it is transformed to illustrate the Norse

Norse mythology

Norse mythology, a subset of Germanic mythology, is the overall term for the myths, legends and beliefs about supernatural beings of Norse pagans. It flourished prior to the Christianization of Scandinavia, during the Early Middle Ages, and passed into Nordic folklore, with some aspects surviving...

river horse of Scanian folklore.

Dukes

The title of duke was reintroduced in Sweden in 1772 and since this time, Swedish Princes have been created Dukes of various provinces, although this is a solely nominal title.

The Dukes of Skåne are:

Crown Prince Carl
Charles XV of Sweden
Charles XV & IV also Carl ; Swedish and Norwegian: Karl was King of Sweden and Norway from 1859 until his death....

(from his birth in 1826 until he became King in 1859)
Crown Prince Gustaf Adolf
Gustaf VI Adolf of Sweden
Gustaf VI Adolf - Oscar Fredrik Wilhelm Olaf Gustaf Adolf - was King of Sweden from October 29, 1950 until his death. His official title was King of Sweden, of the Goths and of the Wends. He was the eldest son of King Gustaf V and his wife Victoria of Baden...

(from his birth in 1882 until he became King in 1950)

From his marriage, in 1905, King Gustaf VI Adolf had his summer residence at Sofiero Palace in Helsingborg

Helsingborg

. He and his family spent their summers there, and the cabinet meetings held there during the summer months forced the ministers to arrive by night train from Stockholm

Stockholm

Stockholm is the capital and the largest city of Sweden and constitutes the most populated urban area in Scandinavia. Stockholm is the most populous city in Sweden, with a population of 851,155 in the municipality , 1.37 million in the urban area , and around 2.1 million in the metropolitan area...

. He died at Helsingborg

Helsingborg

Hospital in 1973.

Official links

Region Skåne - The County council
Scania's Public Recreational Areas - Region Skåne's public forests and parks
Skåne - Business Region Skåne's official website for culture, heritage and tourism
Länsstyrelsen - County Administration Board
Skåneleden - Public nature trails through Scania

Organizations

Oresund Region - The regional body of the Oresund Region
Regional Museum - Museum in Kristianstad
Kommunförbundet Skåne - A cooperation between Scania's 33 municipalities
Skånes hembygdsförbund (in Swedish) - Heritage conservation organization
Terra Scaniae - History project established for Scanian schools, financed with subsidies from the Region of Scanias culturedepartment – Kultur Skåne – and the Foundation Culture of the Future, established by the Swedish Government.

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