Gothenburg Municipality

Gothenburg Municipality (Göteborgs kommun or Göteborgs stad) is a municipality in Västra Götaland County in western Sweden. Its seat is located in the city of Gothenburg.

This article is about the administrative municipality. For the Riksdag constituency, see Gothenburg Municipality (Riksdag constituency).
Gothenburg Municipality

Göteborgs kommun
Municipality
Coat of arms
Coordinates: 57°42′N 11°56′E
CountrySweden
CountyVästra Götaland County
SeatGothenburg
Government
 • MayorAxel Josefson (M)
 Area as of 1 January 2014.
Population
 (November 11th, 2019)[1]
 • Total578,327
Time zoneUTC+1 (CET)
 • Summer (DST)UTC+2 (CEST)
ISO 3166 codeSE
ProvinceVästergötland and Bohuslän
Municipal code1480
Website
Börsen, Gothenburg's City Hall
Gothenburg fish market

The major part of the Gothenburg urban area (Göteborgs tätort) is situated within the municipality, but there are also some other localities as well as rural areas.

When the first Swedish local government acts were implemented in 1863 the City of Gothenburg, founded and chartered in 1621, became a city municipality with an elected city council (stadsfullmäktige). Its territory has since then been added through amalgamations in 1868, 1906, 1922, 1931, 1945, 1948, 1967 and 1974. The local government reform of 1971 made the city a unitary municipality, like all others in the country. The municipality prefers, however, to style itself Göteborgs stad (City of Göteborg[2]), whenever legally possible.

In March 2018 it was reported that the municipality and municipality-owned companies had 236 employees working with public relations (Swedish: kommunikation), more than Stockholm, to a cost of 400 000 SEK daily or 151 million SEK annually.[3][4]

Localities

Politics and government

The municipality has a municipal assembly (kommunfullmäktige), consisting of 81 members, elected for four years. There are ten political parties represented in the council elected in 2018:[5]

Name Ideologies
Political alliance Seats +/-
S Swedish Social Democratic Party

Socialdemokraterna

 Social democracy
17 / 81
 -3
DEM Democrats Demokraterna Centrism, Liberalism[6]
14 / 81
 +14
M Moderate Party

Moderaterna

 Liberal conservatism Alliance
12 / 81
 -8
V Left Party

Vänsterpartiet

 Socialism Red-green-pink Coalition
11 / 81
 +3
SD Sweden Democrats

Sverigedemokraterna

 Right-wing populism
7 / 81
 +1
L Liberals

Liberalerna

 Liberalism Alliance
6 / 81
 -1
MP Green Party

Miljöpartiet

 Green politics Red-green-pink Coalition
6 / 81
 -3
C Centre Party

Centerpartiet

 Liberalism, Agrarianism Alliance
3 / 81
 +3
KD Christian Democrats

Kristdemokraterna

 Christian democracy Alliance
3 / 81
 +-0
FI Feminist Initiative

Feministiskt Initiativ

 Radical feminism Red-green-pink Coalition
2 / 81
 -1

Following the 2018 municipal elections, neither traditional coalition of parties (the Alliance and the Red-Greens) was able to obtain a majority in the municipal assembly. The newly-formed Democrats party, whose primary campaign promise is to stop the construction of the West Link, obtained 14 seats in the assembly, making it the second-largest party. The Green Party and the Left Party announced on 6 November that they would draft their own municipal budget together, along with Feminist Initiative - thus abandoning their traditional cooperation with the Social Democrats. This has been recognized as the three parties forming a local political alliance which has been referred to as the Red-green-pink coalition.[7]

The municipal executive committee (kommunstyrelsen) has 13 members, representing the six parties from the two major political coalitions who have seats in the assembly.

The chairwoman of the municipal assembly is Åse-Lill Törnquist (MP) and the chairman of the municipal executive committee (sometimes titled mayor) is Axel Josefson from the Moderate Party.

List of Mayors

Boroughs
Further information: Boroughs and Districts of Gothenburg

In 1990 the municipality was subdivided into 21 stadsdelsnämnder (district boards), sometimes translated to boroughs, which they really are not. In 2009 the two district boards of Frölunda and Högsbo were joined together. It has been decided that from the start of 2011 many more will be joined together leaving 10 new district boards. The boards carry responsibility for primary school, social, leisure, and cultural services within their respective areas. In the election of 1998 three boroughs (Askim, Torslanda and Älvsborg) held local referendums on forming their own municipalities, but their petitions were rejected by the government of Sweden.

Boroughs:

International cooperation

The cooperation with the South African Nelson Mandela Bay Metropolitan Municipality (established in 1998) is a partnership fostering development of common fields of interest such as solid waste management, public libraries, sport and tourism. Gothenburg had signed an agreement with Shanghai in 1986 which was upgraded in 2003 to include exchanges in culture, economics, trade and sport. However, the agreement was allowed to lapse in 2020.[8]

See also

References
KML is from Wikidata
  1. https://www.scb.se/hitta-statistik/statistik-efter-amne/befolkning/befolkningens-sammansattning/befolkningsstatistik/pong/tabell-och-diagram/kvartals--och-halvarsstatistik--kommun-lan-och-riket/kvartal-3-2019//
  2. Göteborgs Stads designprogram Archived 2009-03-26 at the Wayback Machine (in Swedish)
  3. Nyheter, SVT (2018-03-30). "Publicering kring kommunikatörer upprör – SVT svarar på kritiken". SVT Nyheter (in Swedish). Retrieved 2018-04-01.
  4. Nyheter, SVT (2018-03-27). "Göteborgarnas nota: Nästan en halv miljon – om dagen". SVT Nyheter (in Swedish). Retrieved 2018-04-01.
  5. "Valresultat för Kommunvalet: Göteborg". valresultat.svt.se (in Swedish). Retrieved 2018-11-06.
  6. ""Demokraterna kan orsaka politiskt kaos"". www.goteborgdirekt.se (in Swedish). Retrieved 2018-11-06.
  7. TT. "S ställs utanför nya blocket i Göteborg | SvD". SvD.se (in Swedish). Retrieved 2018-11-06.
  8. https://hongkongfp.com/2020/04/24/gothenburg-axes-twin-city-agreement-with-shanghai-as-sweden-closes-all-confucius-institutes/
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