Region Gotland, legallyGotlands kommun (English:Gotland Municipality), is amunicipality withregional responsibilities[3] that covers the entireisland ofGotland inSweden. Thecity ofVisby is the municipality's seat. Gotland Municipality is the 39th most populous municipality in Sweden.[4]
The flag of the municipality is a whiteram on a red background.[5]
On 31 December 1951 there were 93local government units on the island of Gotland, among them onecity (Visby), onemarket town (Slite), onecounty council and a lot of rural municipalities, many of them with fewer than 100 inhabitants.
Twenty years later the situation was totally different.
The first of the two nationwide local government reforms in Sweden during the 20th century was implemented on 1 January 1952. From that date on, the rural municipalities on the island were regrouped into twelve new enlarged municipalities, which together with Visby, Slite and the Gotland County Council formed the new administrative pattern.
After ten years it was clear that this reform had not been radical enough and the work began preparing for the next one.
On 1 January 1971 the second and last local government reform was implemented in Sweden. All administrative and judicial differences between rural and urban areas were abolished. Only one type of municipality (kommun) existed from that date on. In the case of Gotland all the former entities were united into one single unit. As there was only one municipality in the county, also the County Council was abolished and merged into the new unitary municipality.
As the municipality is the only one in Sweden with both localand regional functions, normally provided separately by theMunicipalities andRegional councils respectively, Gotland has a special status as a municipality and has officially been namedRegion Gotland as of 2011.[3]
This is a demographic table based on Gotland Municipality's electoral districts in the2022 Swedish general election sourced fromSVT's election platform, in turn taken fromSCB official statistics.[8]
In total there were 60,941 residents, including 48,274 Swedish citizens of voting age.[8] 59.2 % voted for the left coalition and 39.3 % for the right coalition. Indicators are in percentage points except population totals and income.
These are the results of the elections to the Riksdag held in Gotland since 1973. The results only include parties that have won representation in the Riksdag assembly at least once during this timeframe. The results of theSweden Democrats were not listed at a municipal level by theSCB between 1988 and 1998 due to the party's small size at the time. The respective coalitions are based on which prime minister the party backed at the back end of each governance period.
When Gotland was made into a single municipality in the 1970s, thecounty council was abolished and its responsibilities transferred to the municipality, making it aunitary authority. During a trial period some of the authority normally held by theGotland County Administrative Board, an agency of the national government, has also been devolved to the Gotland Municipality, as well as to two mainland councils. The municipality of Gotland is therefore in this respect also a region. It has responsibility for thepublic healthcare system andpublic transport.
The municipality coordinates the annualAlmedalen Week (Almedalsveckan), an important meetingplace for everyone involved inSwedish politics. During the week, representatives from the political parties in theRiksdag take turns to hold speeches in theAlmedalen park inVisby.
^"Om Region Gotlands flagga" [About Region Gotland's flag].Region Gotland (in Swedish). 1 December 2022. Retrieved4 May 2023.
^"Gotland i siffror, pdf".www.gotland.se (in Swedish). Region Gotland. pp. 65–67. Archived fromthe original on 10 September 2013. Retrieved13 June 2014.
^abcdSome numbers are not available for 2012, since the population was listed as inhabitants in eachsocken. Only a few localities were mentioned, and these only as approximations.