The Regions of Denmark were created as part of the 2007 Danish Municipal Reform. The five regions replace the former sixteen counties (amter). At the same time, the number of municipalities (kommuner) was cut from 270 to 98. The reform was made effective on 1 January 2007.
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The names of the regions in English are not uniform. The government often uses the Danish names[1] or directly translated English names (e.g. Greater Copenhagen, Zealand, North Jutland, Southern Denmark, Central Jutland).[2] The regions themselves partially use other names in English, substituting 'Jutland' for 'Denmark', as shown below.
| Danish name | English name | Seat of administration | Largest city | Population (January 1, 2008) |
Area (km²) | Pop. density (per km²) |
Corresponding counties (1970–2006) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Region Hovedstaden | Capital Region of Denmark | Hillerød | Copenhagen | 1,645,825 | 2,561 | 642.6 | Copenhagen County and Frederiksborg, and the municipalities of Copenhagen, Frederiksberg and Bornholm |
| Region Midtjylland | Central Denmark Region | Viborg | Århus | 1,237,041 | 13,142 | 94.2 | Ringkjøbing, nearly all of Århus, the southern part of Viborg and the northern part of Vejle |
| Region Nordjylland | North Denmark Region | Aalborg | Aalborg | 578,839 | 7,927 | 73.2 | North Jutland, the northern part of Viborg County and a small part of Århus County |
| Region Sjælland | Region Zealand | Sorø | Roskilde | 819,427 | 7,273 | 112.7 | Roskilde, Storstrøm, and West Zealand |
| Region Syddanmark | Region of Southern Denmark | Vejle | Odense | 1,194,659 | 12,191 | 97.99 | Funen, Ribe, South Jutland and the southern half of Vejle County |
| Entire country | 5,475,791 | 43,094 | 127.0 |
The most important area of responsibility for the new regions is the public health service. They are also responsible for employment policies and public mass transit (buses and a few local railways). However, in eastern Denmark (Region Zealand and the Capital Region) transit is handled by a single transport agency, Movia.
Regions are led by directly elected councils (regionsråd). They consist of 41 members each. Elections are held simultaneously with municipal elections every four years. The last Danish local elections were held on 17 November 2009.
Unlike the former counties, regions are not entitled to levy their own taxes. Thus, the present regions rely entirely on central state funding (around 70%) and funding coming from the municipalities (around 30%). A central government "health contribution" tax (sundhedsbidrag) at 8.00% on the preliminary and final income statement forms has replaced the county tax (amtsskat).
90% of the budgets of the regions are allocated to the national health service. Health issues have remained the primary hot issue in regional politics, especially because grand changes of Denmark's hospital layout were announced immediately after the municipal reform. The new hospital schemes have not been fully finalised yet (as of 2009).
The reform has been called the biggest reform in thirty years. It was an important policy issue for the current Liberal-Conservative cabinet, most importantly for Lars Løkke Rasmussen, then minister of the Interior and Health.
The abolition of the counties had long been an important goal for both the Conservatives and the Danish People's Party. In June 2004, the Danish People's Party decided to back the reform, thus securing a majority in the Danish parliament (Folketing), although the party had preferred just abolishing the counties without replacing them with a new intermediate administrative level (the other two being the government and the municipalities). The parties who wanted to limit the regional tier of government prevailed insofar as the regions have no authority to levy any taxes, unlike the former counties.
The 5 state administrations (statsforvaltning) are the representations of the central government in the five regions. They belong to The Ministry of the Interior and Health. Their jurisdictions follow the region borders. These administrations are not subordinate to the regional councils, but rather the direct presence of the state (similar to governates or prefectures in certain countries).
A state administration office exists in each region, supervising the daily business of municipalities and regions, and functioning as a body of appeal for citizens who wish to complain over a decision by the municipality or region. The offices also handle affairs concerning adoption, citizenship and divorces.
Each office is led by a Director of the State Administration (forvaltningsdirektør) who is a university graduate of law.
The predecessor of the state administrations, before the 2007 reform, were the state counties (statsamt). In Copenhagen the prefecture was called the 'Upper Presidium' (Københavns Overpræsidium). Each of these were led by a governmental civil servant, the county prefect ((stats)amtmand). In Copenhagen he was called the 'Upper President' (Københavns overpræsident), a title dating from 1747, but not widely known by the public. In some counties the prefect was called a diocesal county prefect (stiftamtmand), also being a part of the diocesan authorities within the National Church.
The county prefect was also the political leader of county councils until the first municipal reform of 1970, when this task was taken over by the county mayor (amtsborgmester) who was one of the elected county council members. In Copenhagen, the switch was made in 1938 when the title of Upper Mayor (overborgmester) was created.
After the 1970 reform, the prefectures were not very regarded by the common citizen, with the notable exception of cases concerning divorce and child custody. Also, the county prefect in his uniform would be the person to receive the Queen on her visits throughout the country.
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