Home
Assignments
Bookmarks
Municipality and county
Upgrade for more content
True or false? Länsstyrelse is approximately the same thing as landstingsfullmäktige.
Suhad lives in Åre municipality, in Jämtland county. It snows during winter, and many tourists go there for downhill skiing and snowboarding. In Stockholm County, in a suburb outside the city of Stockholm, lives Oscar. In Stockholm county there are more busses, trains, and boats providing public transport than anywhere else in Sweden. Suhad and Oscar both live in Sweden, in the nation state "Sweden".
But they live in different municipalities and in different counties, with different county councils. Wait a moment. Municipality, county, county council... How does this all fit together? Who does what really?
And who decides? Municipalities and county councils work in similar ways: We vote for those who make decisions, both in the municipality and the county council. Both collect taxes from their inhabitants. And both have responsibility for their inhabitants, seeing to it that they are healthy, and that they can move and travel in the area. Let's start with the county council: Sweden is divided into counties, or regions.
There used to be more counties, but occasionally two counties have been combined to form a larger region. In every county or region people vote for a democratic assembly -- the county council, or to be precise: council assembly of the county, or region. The county council is in charge of some issues in the region, such as health care and public transport. Every county is divided into several municipalities. (Except Gotland, which is both a municipality and a county.) There are many municipalities in Sweden, and most of them are small. More than half of Sweden's municipalities have fewer than 20 000 inhabitants.
The municipalities - are governed by the city council, which is elected by the inhabitants in free elections, just like the county council. The municipalities are responsible for quite a lot: streets, preschools, schools, taking care of the elderly, libraries, and a lot of other things. All of these things are obligatory for the municipality to arrange. The municipality chooses for itself how they want to arrange them. Oscar and Suhad live in two rather different municipalities.
The Natural environment differs, there are different kinds of companies, and different numbers of inhabitants. Their municipalities have different preconditions. But even so, all municipalities in Sweden have to provide schools, libraries, and social services. No municipality can claim that they cost too much, and stop offering them to its inhabitants. So, municipalities are quite similar to county councils.
But this council thing, is actually a bit more complicated. Even though counties and regions are governed by their county councils, they are also governed by the state, through the County Administrative Board. Unlike the county council, which is appointed by the people, through elections, the County Administrative Board is part of the state, and works on behalf of the national government. The County Administrative Board deals with things that the state is responsible for and decides about, but which is more practical to manage at the regional level. So, Stockholm County Council, and Jämtland County council, are different from the County Administrative Board of Stockholm and Jämtland.
The highest ranking officer in a County Administrative Board is called the County Governor. On the level above municipality and county is the state. It is the Riksdag that decides about which laws and rules the municipalities and counties have to adhere to. That is, what is obligatory. They can choose to do more than that.
In Åre, this might be things related to ski slopes and winter tourism. In Stockholm the municipality contributes a lot to concerts and theatres. The municipalities work with some optional responsibilities, and they choose how to manage the obligatory responsibilities. This is called municipal autonomy. Municipality, county, and state.
Together, they form the public sector. Hang on a second, one more thing! What about landskap? Well "landskap" is an old way to divide the country. Nowadays the "landskap" has no political significance.
You'll learn more about them in geography and history.