Gotland County

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Gotland County, or Gotlands län, is a County or län of Sweden. Gotland is located in the Baltic sea to the east of Öland, and is the largest of Sweden's islands. Counties are usually sub-divided into municipalities, but Gotland County only consists of one municipality: Gotland Municipality. The difference between the two are only at an administrative level, as the county council and municipal council serve different tasks. Both have their seat in the largest city Visby, with 22,000 inhabitants.

**Gotlands län**
Map highlighting the location of Gotland County in Sweden
	County	SE-I, SE094
	Residence City	Visby
	Province	Gotland
	Created	1658
	Area - -	3,140 km², 0.8% of Sweden; ranked 20th
	Population Reference: ranked list	57,428 inh., 18.3 inh/km²
	GRP	See this ranked list

1 Province
2 Administration
3 Politics
4 Heraldry
5 External links

[edit] Province

Sweden's counties are mainly administrative units, used for inhabitant figures, politics, etc. For the culture and history of the island, see article Gotland.

[edit] Administration

The main aim of the County Administrative Board is to fulfil the goals set in national politics by the Parliament and the Government, to coordinate the interests and promote the development of the county, to establish regional goals and safeguard the due process of law in the handling of each case. The County Administrative Board is nominally a Government agency headed by a Governor. See List of Gotland Governors.

Gotland is the only Swedish county that does not have a county council, as well as having only one municipality and one area code.

[edit] Politics

Main article: Gotland Municipality

The County of Gotland consists of a single municipality and as there is no separate entity for a County Council, those tasks are handled by the Municipality of Gotland. During a trial period the County Council provisions for Gotland has been evolved to provisions for a Regional Council, meaning that it has assumed certain tasks from the County Administrative Board. Similar provisions are applicable to the counties of Västra Götaland and Skåne during the trial period.

[edit] Heraldry

Gotland County inherited its coat of arms from the province of Gotland. When it is shown with a royal crown it represents the County Administrative Board.