Halland County

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Halland County, or Hallands län, is a County or län on the western coast of Sweden. It corresponds to the cultural and historical province of Halland.

It borders the counties of Västra Götaland, Jönköping, Kronoberg, Skåne and the sea of the Kattegat.

**Hallands län**
Map highlighting the location of Halland County in Sweden
	County	SE-N, SE0A1
	Residence City	Halmstad
	Province	Halland
	Created	1719
	Area - -	5,454 km², 1.3% of Sweden; ranked 19th
	Population Reference: ranked list	273,537 inh., 50.1 inh/km²
	GRP	See this ranked list

1 Province
2 Administration
3 Politics
4 Municipalities
5 Heraldry
6 Future
7 External links

[edit] Province

Provinces mainly serve administrative purposes in Sweden. The culture and history of the area is to be found in its provincial counterpart Halland. Halland was designed with virtually the same boundaries as Halland County. The major exception is a part of Hylte Municipality, which belonged to the province of Småland.

[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 Halland Governors.

[edit] Politics

Among the main responsibilities of the Halland County Council or Landstinget Halland are public health care issues.

[edit] Municipalities

Sweden's counties are entities for Sweden's municipalities, responsible for such things as child care, education, street planning, etc. Municipalities in Halland County are, from north to south:

Kungsbacka Municipality (69,352 inhabitants)
Varberg Municipality (54,676)
Falkenberg Municipality (39,595)
Hylte Municipality (10,377)
Halmstad Municipality (87,900)
Laholm Municipality (23,039)

(Population as of June 30, 2005)

[edit] Heraldry

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

[edit] Future

There is an investigation committee appointed by the government, investigating the best future division and responsibitites of the counties of Sweden, called Ansvarskommittén. They are working long-term, but their preliminary reports suggest a large reduction of the number of counties in Sweden. Halland county is there proposed to be divided in two halves, both to be combined with neighbouring large counties.