Vadstena Municipality is a municipality

Municipalities of Sweden

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

 in Östergötland County

Östergötland County

Östergötland County is a county or län in southeastern Sweden. It borders the counties of Kalmar to the southeast, Jönköping to the southwest, Västra Götaland to the west, Örebro to the northwest, Södermanland to the northeast, and the Baltic Sea to the east.Östergötland County has a population of...

 in southeast 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....

. Its seat is located in the city

City status in Sweden

Stad is a Swedish term which nominally means town but can also encompass the English word "city". Since 1971 stad has had no administrative or legal significance in Sweden and there exists no commonly accepted definition of the term.-History :...

 of Vadstena

Vadstena

Vadstena is a locality and the seat of Vadstena Municipality, Östergötland County, Sweden, with 5,612 inhabitants in 2005. From 1974 to 1979 Vadstena was administered as part of Motala Municipality....

.

The old City of Vadstena was during the nation-wide local government reform of the 1970s merged into Motala Municipality

Motala Municipality

Motala Municipality is a municipality in Östergötland County in southeast Sweden. Its seat is located in the city of Motala....

 in 1974. This "marriage" was unsuccessful and a "divorce" was soon agreed upon and in 1980 the present municipality was created. It contains, however, 12 original units.

Nature

Vadstena is situated by lake Vättern

Vättern

Vättern is the second largest lake in Sweden, after Lake Vänern and the sixth largest lake in Europe. It is a long, finger-shaped body of fresh water in south central Sweden to the southeast of Vänern pointing at the tip of Scandinavia....

, Sweden's second largest lake. Fishing was an important source of food when the town was first founded around the year 1000 AD, and it continued to be dependent on fish and ship merchandise.

There are two 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...

s in the municipality:

• The Ombergsliden, 230,000 m² large, a lime
  Lime (mineral)
  Lime is a general term for calcium-containing inorganic materials, in which carbonates, oxides and hydroxides predominate. Strictly speaking, lime is calcium oxide or calcium hydroxide. It is also the name for a single mineral of the CaO composition, occurring very rarely...
  
  -rich marsh. It has several notable plants, such as the uncommon orchid Tuber geophyte (Gymnadenia odoratissima), and the carnivorous
  Carnivorous plant
  Carnivorous plants are plants that derive some or most of their nutrients from trapping and consuming animals or protozoans, typically insects and other arthropods. Carnivorous plants appear adapted to grow in places where the soil is thin or poor in nutrients, especially nitrogen, such as acidic...
  
   Butterwort plant http://www5.e.lst.se/reservat/lst/reservat.asp?id=72&sprak=eng.
• The Kastad kulle torräng is a drumlin
  Drumlin
  A drumlin, from the Irish word droimnín , first recorded in 1833, is an elongated whale-shaped hill formed by glacial ice acting on underlying unconsolidated till or ground moraine.-Drumlin formation:...
  
   rich on lime, and hosts several plants otherwise not found in the area, such as the Oxytropis pilosa, otherwise very sparsely outside of Gotland
  Gotland
  Gotland is a county, province, municipality and diocese of Sweden; it is Sweden's largest island and the largest island in the Baltic Sea. At 3,140 square kilometers in area, the region makes up less than one percent of Sweden's total land area...
  
   http://www5.e.lst.se/reservat/lst/reservat.asp?id=74&sprak=eng.

Sights

• Vadstena Castle
  Vadstena Castle
  Vadstena Castle is a former Royal Castle in Vadstena, the province of Östergötland, Sweden.-History:Vadstena Castle was originally built by King Gustav Vasa in 1545 as a fortress to protect Stockholm from enemies from the south...
  
  
• Vadstena Abbey
  Vadstena Abbey
  Vadstena Abbey was the motherhouse of the Bridgettine Order, situated on Lake Vättern, in the Diocese of Linköping, Sweden. The abbey started as one of the farms donated by the king, but the town of Vadstena grew up around it...
  
  
• The Vadstena Hospital area and museum with buildings from the 16th century to the 20th century.
• Herrestad Church, inaugurated in 1112, which makes it one of the oldest dated stone churches in Sweden (the Holy Cross Church in Dalby, Skåne, Sweden
  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....
  
   was built "around" 1060). The church tower was constructed around a century later, and is largely unmodified throughout the centuries.
• Rogslösa Church, from the 13th century, which is especially notable for its ornaments
  Ornament (architecture)
  In architecture and decorative art, ornament is a decoration used to embellish parts of a building or object. Large figurative elements such as monumental sculpture and their equivalents in decorative art are excluded from the term; most ornament does not include human figures, and if present they...
  
   of Celt
  Celt
  The Celts were a diverse group of tribal societies in Iron Age and Roman-era Europe who spoke Celtic languages.The earliest archaeological culture commonly accepted as Celtic, or rather Proto-Celtic, was the central European Hallstatt culture , named for the rich grave finds in Hallstatt, Austria....
  
  ic influences.
• There are also other interesting medieval churches in the municipality, such as Hagebyhöga Church, Väversunda Church, Hov Church, Örberga Church and Nässja Church. Most of these were begun on in the 12th century.

External links

• Vadstena Municipality - Official site
• Tidernas Landskap - For current events