SKÅNE
one of Sweden's 21 counties

From the Stone Age and through the Bronze Age there are a large amount of ancient remains and landmarks scattered all over Skåne. The province belonged to Denmark until 1658, when it became a part of Sweden as a result of a Swedish invasion in parts of Denmark.

The peace treaty of Roskilde 1658, when Skåne came under the sovereignty of Sweden's king Karl X Gustav , signaled a period of harsh "swedeification" of the province, which was to last beyond 1700. Although the nobility was quick in pledging allegiance to the King of Sweden (in exchange for being allowed to keep their estates) most of the population of Skåne felt more Danish than Swedish. The Danes tried to recapture Skåne but failed when King Karl XI won the battle in 1676 (Lund) over the Danes.

Due to Skåne being a border province, there are a large amount of castles and forts in the region..
One interesting example is Kärnan from the 900's and another is Bäckaskog Castle from the 1200's.

Lunds Domkyrka (cathedral) dates from 1080 and was built after Skåne had been christianized in the 11th century. Five hundreds years later, Protestantism was expanding in Skåne from a beginning in Malmö.

In the 19th century, Skåne developed mainly the brick industry and the agriculture industry which is still very important. During the 20th century the ship building industry was very big but is on the decline in recent years.

The coastline of Denmark is not far from Skåne and the closeness was of big help to refugees and to food transportations during WWII. There are several fantastic descriptions about the end of WW II, when the people in Skåne saw Denmark suddenly was lit up again, after quite a long period of darkness due to the occupation by the Germans.

Skånes own flag.

Area: 11 027 km2 (of which 10.983 km2 land area). 102 inhabitants per km2.

Population: Skåne has over 1 million inhabitants (1.129.424 persons Dec 31 2000)

Climate: Average temperature 1997 (city of Malmö)
(degrees Celsius)
April 5,7
June 15,7
Aug 20,8
Dec 2,3
all year 8,5
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Largest cities of Skåne: Malmö (259.579 inhabitants 2000)
Helsingborg (117.737 inhabitants 2000)
Lund (98.948 inhabitants 2000)
Kristianstad (74.161 inhabitants 2000)


Largest lakes of Skåne: Ivösjön (54,2 km2), Östra Ringsjön (25 km2),
 Immeln (24 km2)