Lolland Municipality: Difference between revisions

Lolland Municipality Lolland Kommune
Municipality
Coat of arms of Lolland Municipality Coat of arms
Country	Denmark
Region	Region Zealand
Seat	Maribo
Government
• Mayor	Holger Schou Rasmussen (S)
Area
• Total	885.40 km2 (341.85 sq mi)
Population  (1 July 2014)
• Total	43,341
• Density	49/km2 (130/sq mi)
Time zone	UTC+1 (CET)
• Summer (DST)	UTC+2 (CEST)
Municipal code	360
Website	www.lolland.dk

Lolland municipality (on the island of Lolland) is a municipality (Danish, kommune) in Region Sjælland in Denmark. According to Municipal And Regional Key Figures (www.noegletal.dk) it covers an area of 885.40 km² (341.85 square miles) and has a population of around 43,000 (2014). Guldborgsund Municipality occupies the eastern part of the island (Østlolland).

Some topics not covered in this article, such as economy (companies), amusement parks, culture or landscape features, may be mentioned in the article Lolland and articles about the former municipalities.

The city hall and the seat of the mayor of Lolland municipality is in Maribo while the largest town is Nakskov. There are 31 members - including the mayor - of the municipal council. The current mayor - elected for the 2014-17 term - is a Socialdemocrat, the 1st deputy mayor is from the agrarian liberal Venstre and the 2nd deputy mayor is from Dansk Folkeparti.

On Monday 1 January 2007 Lolland municipality was created as the result of Kommunalreformen ("The Municipal Reform" of 2007), covering the former municipalities of Holeby, Højreby, Maribo, Nakskov, Ravnsborg, Rudbjerg and Rødby. The local politicians' original plan was to create two new municipalities: Maribo Kommune (Midtlolland: middle of the island) (Holeby, Højreby, Maribo, Rødby) and: Nakskov Kommune (Vestlolland: western part of the island) (Nakskov, Rudbjerg, Ravnsborg), but in a local referendum Wednesday 18 May 2005 it was decided by the voters to combine all of the 7 municipalities into one (the results were 51.6% for in Midtlolland and 54.6% for in Vestlolland).

Economy

Lolland municipality is a countryside municipality largely dependent on its agricultural industry featuring an open and intensively farmed landscape. The island has been renowned for its large sugar beet production.Despite the official vision of creating an ecologically sustainable economy agriculture is mainly conventional and focusing on cash crops like wheat, sugar beets, rapeseed and an intensive production. The sugar beets are refined in up to date processing facilities owned by Nordzucker in Nakskov, the main industrial center. Nordzucker also has a sugar processing factory in Nykøbing Falster in neighboring Guldborgsund Municipality.

The focus on green technologies has resulted in another landscape feature, the many windmills dotting the island.

The shipyard Nakskov Skibsværft founded in 1916 by East Asiatic Company's H. N. Andersen, who was born in Nakskov, was the largest single workplace in the area with 1,500 employees (1966:2,200 employees). It closed January 1, 1987. In the heavy industry other large industrial production sites within the municipality have concentrated their efforts on specialised parts of the production, design for instance, but all factory jobs - the majority of the jobs - have been lost, i.e. MAN B&W Diesel A/S (founded as Holeby Dieselmotorfabrik A/S in 1919) in Holeby. What remains is light industry.

Demography

In the census taken (date?) 1965 (not based on a computerised digital register) the municipalities within the area covering the present municipality had 61,879 inhabitants, and 1 January 1985 (registerbased) 55,897 inhabitants. In 2013 alone, population numbers fell by 2%, from 44,436 to 43,528 inhabitants. From 1965 to 1 July 2014, this represents a fall of 18,538 in the population number, which comes to 29.95%. Nakskov municipality (area:32.67 km;12.61 square miles) alone had 17,390 inhabitants in 1965 (1998:15,549;2002:15,152) and Maribo (area:154.02 km;59.46 square miles), the second most populous municipality in 1965 in the area had 12,517 (1998:11,280;2002:11,039), Ravnsborg (197.59 km;76.28 sq mi) had 8,708 (1999:5,780;2002:5,677), Rødby (120.37 km;46.47 sq mi) 8,198 (1999:6,809;2002:6,763), Højreby (127.79 km;49.33 sq mi) 5,114 (1997:4,257;2002:4,175), Holeby (116.07 km;44.81 sq mi) 4,993 (1996:4,269;2002:4,149), and Rudbjerg (4,959 (1999:3,584;2002:3,564) inhabitants.

The Church of Denmark has 54 parishes in the municipality.

Transport

The municipalities of Lolland and Bornholm and the archipelago of Ertholmene northeast of Bornholm are the places in eastern Denmark that are located the farthest from the capital and largest city of Denmark, Copenhagen. Although the transport to Copenhagen from Lolland can be undertaken by road and railway, Lolland from a point of view of transport can be seen as lying on a dead end (Danish: blind vej;blindgyde) - at least the western part. For most people having visited or visiting Germany on the other side of Fehmarn Belt, Lolland is just a drive-by place along the motorway route.

The traffic corridor between Hamburg and Copenhagen is linked via car and train ferries sailing between Rødby and Puttgarden two times an hour. This ferry route will have competition from the Fehmarn Belt Fixed Link road and railway tunnel which is scheduled to open in 2021. The tunnel will be located in a corridor traversing Fehmarn Belt between a location (exits and entrances of the tunnel) east of the port of Rødbyhavn and a location (exits and entrances) east of the port of Puttgarden.

A ferry route connects Lolland with Langeland to the west.

See also

• Danisco

References

• Municipal statistics: NetBorger Kommunefakta, delivered from KMD aka Kommunedata (Municipal Data)
• Municipal mergers and neighbors: Eniro map with named municipalities

External links

• Lolland municipality's official website Template:Da icon
• Krak searchable/printable map(outline of municipality does not print out!)Template:Da icon