Sjöbo Municipality
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Sjöbo kommun
County	Skåne County
Province	Scania
Seat	Sjöbo
Area  • Total area  • Land area	184th of 290 509.23 km² 495.65 km²
Population  • Total	132nd of 290 17,721 inhabitants
Density  • Total	114th of 290 35.8 inhabitants/km²
Website	http://www.sjobo.se/
Area and population as of December 31, 2006

Sjöbo Municipality (Sjöbo kommun) is a municipality in Skåne County in southern Sweden. Its seat is located in the town Sjöbo.

The present municipality was created in 1974 when the former market town (köping) Sjöbo was amalgameted with the surrounding rural municipalities. There are fifteen original enities within today's municipality.

Localities

There are 9 urban areas (also called a Tätort or locality) in Sjöbo Municipality.

In the table they are listed according to the size of the population as of December 31, 2005. The municipal seat is in bold characters.

Refugee controversy

Sjöbo Municipality reached into the publics eye in Sweden in 1988 when under the leadership of the Municipal Commissioner Sven-Olle Olsson it voted by a majority of 67% in a referendum, that it would not accept foreign asylum seeker. Most other municipalities in Sweden accepted refugees that came from troubled countries such as former Yugoslavia and Iraq.

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, immigration, high unemployment and the fiscal burdens on local governments who were obliged to integrate refugees, and the influence of Sjöbo Municipality's refusal to accept refugees in 1987, led to the adoption of a combined immigration and integration system in the "Aliens Act" of 1989. ¹

Town "centre" one may call it

The streets are long and straight in Sjöbo

The Old Church of Södra Åsum, just north of Sjöbo

Geography

The town of Sjöbo is flat terrained with many small houses and three long strait streets stretching through it, leading to larger roads.

Within the limits of the municipality lays the main part of Vombsjön, which is the largest lake of southern Scania and notable for being the water source of Malmö. Located in the north-western part of themunicipality, some parts of the lake belong to Lund Municipality. It offers fishing for European perch, pike, pikeperch and eel.

Activities

There are at least five (largely) authentic medieval churches from the 12th century in the municipality (in Södra Åsum, Tolånga, Björka, Blentarp and Everlöv). They are notable for not having undergone severe restorations that were suffered by many others churches in Scania once the population began growing in the second half of the 19th century and Helgo Zetterwall was hired to expand on them.

Frescos which adorned the apse of Södra Åsum church and the ceilings of the churches in Everlöv and Illstrop centuries ago have been slowly uncovered in recent years. Many churches such as there had their ornamentation stripped and their paintings plastered over as part of the iconoclasm of Sweden's adoption of Lutheranism.

Apart from religious activities, there is the annual festival Sjöbo marknad , translate to Sjöbo fair, that was first held in 1864, and is now held in late July, attracting some 100,000 visitors; one of the largest country fairs in Sweden. It has carousels and is otherwise noted for its pottery commerce.

References

• Statistics Sweden
• Info about Sjöbo Refugee question from a Nationalistic website: Sweden the extreme Way
• Geography & Activities: Tourist broshure Sjöbo Kommun, (2005), available at the tourist office in Swedish, English and German.

External links

• Sjöbo - Official site
• Coat of arms