Christiansfeld

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Christiansfeld is a municipality (Danish, kommune) in South Jutland County on the east coast of the Jutland peninsula in southern Denmark. The municipality covers an area of 211 km², and has a total population of 9,585 (2005). Its mayor is Jørgen From, a member of the Venstre (Liberal Party) political party.

The main town and the site of its municipal council is the town of Christiansfeld.

Neighboring municipalities are Kolding and Vamdrup to the north, Rødding and Vojens to the west, and Haderslev to the south. To the east is a strait called Bredningen ("The Broadening"), that separates the Jutland mainland from the island of Funen in this area, where the two lie close to each other. Bredningen opens out into the Little Belt (Lillebælt), the main strait between Jutland and Funen, also off the coast of the municipality. The municipalities of Nørre Aaby and Ejby on the other side of Bredningen are thus Christiansfeld's municipal neighbors to the east. The island of Bransø lies in Bredningen between Christiansfeld and Middelfart.

The municipality was created in 1970 as the result of a kommunalreform ("Municipality Reform") that combined a number of existing parishes:

Aller Parish
Bjerning Parish
Christiansfeld Parish
Fjelstrup Parish
Frørup (German:Frörup) Parish
Hejls (German:Heils) Parish
Hjerndrup Parish
Stepping Parish
Taps Parish
Tyrstrup Parish
Vejstrup Parish

By January 1, 2007 Christiansfeld municipality will cease to exist as the result of Kommunalreformen ("The Municipality Reform" of 2007). Bjerning, Hjerndrup and Fjelstrup parishes of Christiansfeld municipality will be merged with existing Gram, Haderslev and Vojens municipalities to form a Haderslev municipality. The remainder of the municipality with be merged into a new Kolding municipality. This will create a municipality with an area of 640 km² and a total population of 86,102 (2005). The new municipality will belong to the new Region Syddanmark ("South Denmark Region").