Trelleborg Municipality
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| Sweden with the province Skåne (Scania) highlighted Missing image Svcmap_skane.png Scania with municipality and seat Missing image Trelleborg_Municipality.png See also:Municipalities of Sweden | Coat of arms Missing image Trelleborg_City_Arms.jpg | |
| Seat | Trelleborg | |
| County | Skåne County | |
| Province | Scania | |
| Area Rank | 342 km² 220th of 290 | |
| Population Rank | 39,477 (2005) 57th of 290 | |
| Density | 115/km² | |
Trelleborg is a municipality and city in Scania in southernmost Sweden. It has a total population of 38,429, of which many live in village on the countryside and about 22,000 live in the city proper. The population density is 113 inhabitants per km².
Trelleborg is located at the southern shore of Sweden and is the southernmost muncipality in Sweden. It covers an area of 341.6 km². It boosts 35 kilometers of sandy beach in the south, beech woods to the north, and inbetween one of the most fertile soils in the world.
History
Trelleborg has been populated for at least one thousand years. In the 10th century or earlier, a Trelleborg was built by vikings. It was rediscovered in the 1990's, and rebuilt, and now it hosts activities every summer.
The first written mention of Trelleborg, in the scarce Swedish medieval sources, is from 1257, when Trelleborg and the adjacent city Malmö where presented as a wedding gift from the Danish royal family to the Swedish Prince Valdemar. It was soon reconquered by the Danes and it belonged to Denmark until 1658, when the entire district Terra Scania was lost to Sweden in a war.
In the medieval times, Trelleborg had an important part in the herring fishing. At that time, this was conducted along the entire coastal line of Sweden, as the herring shoals where of such great numbers that it has been reporter how fishermen could stand at the shore and land in fish with nets. Trelleborg became an important merchant city as merchants from Germany came to trade herring. In april 1619, the Danish King decided that one merchant city on the coastal line was sufficent and revoked Trelleborg's status as a merchant city to favour Malmö.
It did however occure that the Trellebogians continued with their business as a means of surviving. This was probably the start of the tradition of Trelleborgians being sly, wretched and only adhering their own rules.
Not until 1840 was Trelleborg allowed to become a merchant city, and not until 1867 it regained its rights as a city of Sweden. Mostly this was thanks to the work of a few stubborn men, who had contiously been bothering the Swedish Riksdag with these requests ever since 1658.
Today
In the end of the 19th century, Trelleborg became an industrial city and the foundation of modern Trelleborg has in much been created by a few large companies; most notably Trelleborg Industries and the ferry company and business related to the seaport. Much of it has been the work of the influentiel businessman Johan Kock. Other important industries he established where Akzo Nobel Inks, manufacturing printing inks (established as Gleitzman Industries in the 1890's), and DUX, who make beds. Later in the 1950's, Perstorp (Flooring) Industries was established in Trelleborg and it manufactures a type of flooring boards and other plastic material. Trelleborg continues to be a working class city and is politically a traditional stronghold for the working class party the Socialdemocrats.
It is today often visited by people travelling from Sweden to Germany because of the ferries trafficing Rostock, Sassnitz and Lübeck - Travemünde in Germany. These ferries began touring on May 1, 1897 with the Sassnitz line; the route to Lübeck was established 1962, while the line to the former East German city Rostock was augurated after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. The ferries carry both passengers on one day-journies, cars with vacationing families, and heavy trucks on their way through Europe.
Today Trelleborg has the second largest seaport of Sweden, trailing Gothenburg. Every year it transports more than 10 million (European) tons (a ton = 1000 kilos).
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Owl Edition
This article contains content from the Owl Edition of Nordisk familjebok, a Swedish encyclopedia published between 1904-1926 now in Public Domain.
External links
- Trelleborg (http://www.trelleborg.se/) - Official site
- History (http://www.trelleborg.se/t_templates/t_Page____1717.aspx) (Used on April 29, 2005)
- NF, article Trälleborg (http://runeberg.org/nfcj/0109.html)