Trelleborg
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| Trelleborg | |
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  Trelleborg
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| Coordinates: | |
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| Country | Sweden |
| Municipality | Trelleborg Municipality |
| County | Skåne County |
| Province | Skåne |
| Area [1] | |
| - Total | 11.22 km² (4.3 sq mi) |
| Population (2005-12-31)[1] | |
| - Total | 25,643 |
| - Density | 2,286/km² (5,920.7/sq mi) |
| Time zone | CET (UTC+1) |
| - Summer (DST) | CEST (UTC+2) |
Trelleborg is the southernmost city in Sweden and the seat of Trelleborg Municipality in Skåne County. It has a population of 25,643 (2005).
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[edit] History
The first written mention of Trelleborg, in the scarce Swedish medieval sources, is from 1257, when Trelleborg and the adjacent city Malmö were 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 Scania was lost to Sweden by the Treaty of Roskilde.
In the medieval times, Trelleborg had an important part in herring fishing. At that time, this was conducted along the entire coast line of Sweden, as the herring shoals were of such great numbers that it has been reported how fishermen could stand on the shore and land 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 coast was sufficient and revoked Trelleborg's status as a merchant city to favour Malmö.
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 continuously been petitioning the Swedish Riksdag with these requests since 1658.
[edit] Today
At the end of the 19th century, Trelleborg became an industrial town and the foundation of modern Trelleborg has largely 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 influential businessman Johan Kock. Other important industries he established were Akzo Nobel Inks, manufacturing printing inks (established as Gleitzman Industries in the 1890s), and DUX, who make beds. Later in the 1950s, Perstorp (Flooring) Industries was established in Trelleborg and it manufactures flooring boards and other plastic material. Trelleborg continues to be a working-class oriented city and is politically a traditional stronghold for the Swedish Social Democratic Party.
It is today often visited by people travelling from Sweden to Germany because of the ferries to Rostock, Sassnitz and Lübeck - Travemünde in Germany. These ferries began sailing on May 1, 1897 with the Sassnitz line; the route to Travemünde was established in 1962, while the line to the former East German city Rostock was inaugurated after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. The ferries carry both passengers on one-day journeys, cars with vacationing families, and heavy trucks on their way through Europe. In April 1917, Lenin arrived with the ferry from Sassnitz to Trelleborg on his way from exile back to Russia to lead the Revolution.
Today Trelleborg has the second largest seaport of Sweden, behind Gothenburg. Every year it transports more than 10 million metric tonnes of cargo.
Overlooking the harbour of Smygehuk near Trelleborg is a statue of a nude woman that was installed in 1930. Uma Thurman's grandmother, the mother of Nena von Schlebrügge, was the model for this statue.[2]
[edit] References
- ^ a b Tätorternas landareal, folkmängd och invånare per km2 2000 och 2005 (xls) (Swedish). Statistics Sweden. Retrieved on 2008-05-15.
- ^ Uma Thurmans mormor staty i Trelleborg, Sydsvenskan, 30 July 2006. (Swedish)
[edit] External links
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Trelleborg is one of 134 towns with the historical City status in Sweden. |
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