Öland (, ; ; sometimes written ''Øland'' in other

Scandinavian languages The North Germanic languages make up one of the three branches of the Germanic languages—a sub-family of the Indo-European languages—along with the West Germanic languages and the extinct East Germanic languages. The language group is also r ...

, and often ''Oland'' internationally; la, Oelandia) is the second-largest Swedish island and the smallest of the traditional

provinces of Sweden The provinces of Sweden ( sv, Sveriges landskap) are historical, geographical and cultural regions. Sweden has 25 provinces; they have no administrative function (except for in some cases as sport districts), but remain historical legacies and ...

. Öland has an area of and is located in the

Baltic Sea The Baltic Sea is an arm of the Atlantic Ocean that is enclosed by Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Russia, Sweden and the North and Central European Plain. The sea stretches from 53°N to 66°N latitude and from ...

just off the coast of

Småland Småland () is a historical province () in southern Sweden. Småland borders Blekinge, Scania, Halland, Västergötland, Östergötland and the island Öland in the Baltic Sea. The name Småland literally means ''Small Lands''. The Latinized fo ...

. The island has 26,000 inhabitants. It is separated from the mainland by the Kalmar Strait and connected to it by the Öland Bridge, which opened on 30 September 1972. The county seat Kalmar is on the mainland at the other end of the bridge and is an important commercial centre related to the Öland economy. The island's two municipalities are Borgholm and Mörbylånga named after their municipal seats. Much of the island is farmland, with fertile plains aided by the mild and sunny weather during summer. Öland does not have separate political representation at the national level, and is fully integrated into Sweden as part of

Kalmar County Kalmar County () is a county or '' län'' in southern Sweden. It borders the counties of Kronoberg, Jönköping, Blekinge and Östergötland. To the east in the Baltic Sea is the island Gotland. The counties are mainly administrative units. Geo ...

Administration

The traditional

no longer serve administrative or political purposes but still exist as historical and cultural entities. Öland is part of the administrative

county A county is a geographic region of a country used for administrative or other purposesChambers Dictionary, L. Brookes (ed.), 2005, Chambers Harrap Publishers Ltd, Edinburgh in certain modern nations. The term is derived from the Old French ...

(''Kalmar län'') and consists of the two

municipalities A municipality is usually a single administrative division having corporate status and powers of self-government or jurisdiction as granted by national and regional laws to which it is subordinate. The term ''municipality'' may also mean the go ...

Borgholm Municipality Borgholm Municipality (''Borgholms kommun'') is a municipality in Kalmar County, south-eastern Sweden, constituting the northern half of the island of Öland in the Baltic Sea. The municipal seat is located in the city of Borgholm. Notable histor ...

and Mörbylånga Municipality. There was an Öland County in the short period between 1819 and 1826; otherwise, the island has been part of Kalmar County since 1634.

Heraldry

Öland was granted provincial arms in 1560, but it would not be until the 1940s that the province was assigned its proper ones. The arms granted to ''Öland'' had been mixed up with the arms granted to ''

Åland Åland ( fi, Ahvenanmaa: ; ; ) is an Federacy, autonomous and Demilitarized zone, demilitarised region of Finland since 1920 by a decision of the League of Nations. It is the smallest region of Finland by area and population, with a size of 1 ...

'' and this was not discovered until the 20th century. While Öland changed its coat of arms, Åland, which was now a Finnish (autonomous) province, kept its established but originally unintended coat of arms. The deer is meant to symbolize the status of Öland as a royal game park and the arms are topped by a ducal crown. Blazon: "Azure a Deer Or attired, hoofed and gorged Gules."

History

Archaeological evidence indicates the island of Öland was settled about 8000 BC, with excavations dating from the

Paleolithic The Paleolithic or Palaeolithic (), also called the Old Stone Age (from Greek: παλαιός ''palaios'', "old" and λίθος ''lithos'', "stone"), is a period in human prehistory that is distinguished by the original development of stone too ...

era showing the presence of

hunter-gatherer A traditional hunter-gatherer or forager is a human living an ancestrally derived lifestyle in which most or all food is obtained by foraging, that is, by gathering food from local sources, especially edible wild plants but also insects, fungi, ...

s. In the early

Stone Age The Stone Age was a broad prehistoric period during which stone was widely used to make tools with an edge, a point, or a percussion surface. The period lasted for roughly 3.4 million years, and ended between 4,000 BC and 2,000 BC, with t ...

settler A settler is a person who has human migration, migrated to an area and established a permanent residence there, often to colonize the area. A settler who migrates to an area previously uninhabited or sparsely inhabited may be described as a ...

s from the mainland migrated across the

ice bridge An ice bridge is a frozen natural structure formed over seas, bays, rivers or lake surfaces. They facilitate migration of animals or people over a water body that was previously uncrossable by terrestrial animals, including humans. The most sign ...

that connected the island across the Kalmar Strait. Evidence of habitation of Öland occurred at least as early as 6000 BC, when there were Stone Age settlements at Alby and other locations on the island. Burial grounds from the

Iron Age The Iron Age is the final epoch of the three-age division of the prehistory and protohistory of humanity. It was preceded by the Stone Age (Paleolithic, Mesolithic, Neolithic) and the Bronze Age (Chalcolithic). The concept has been mostly appl ...

through the

Viking Age The Viking Age () was the period during the Middle Ages when Norsemen known as Vikings undertook large-scale raiding, colonizing, conquest, and trading throughout Europe and reached North America. It followed the Migration Period and the Ger ...

are clearly visible at Gettlinge, Hulterstad and other places on the perimeter ridge including stone ships. There are nineteen Iron Age

ringfort Ringforts, ring forts or ring fortresses are circular fortified settlements that were mostly built during the Bronze Age up to about the year 1000. They are found in Northern Europe, especially in Ireland. There are also many in South Wales ...

s identified on the island, only one of which,

Eketorp Eketorp is an Iron Age fort, located on southeastern Öland, Sweden, and extensively reconstructed and enlarged in the Middle Ages. Throughout the ages the fortification has served a variety of somewhat differing uses: from defensive ringfort, to m ...

, has been completely excavated, yielding over 24,000 artifacts. Around 900 AD,

Wulfstan of Hedeby Wulfstan of Hedeby was a late ninth century traveller and trader. His travel accounts, as well as those of another trader, Ohthere of Hålogaland, were included in the ''Old English Orosius''. It is unclear if Wulfstan was English or indeed if h ...

called the island "Eowland", the land of the Eowans: However, this is not the first mention of the Eowans. There is an even earlier mention of the tribe in the

Anglo-Saxon The Anglo-Saxons were a Cultural identity, cultural group who inhabited England in the Early Middle Ages. They traced their origins to settlers who came to Britain from mainland Europe in the 5th century. However, the ethnogenesis of the Anglo- ...

poem Poetry (derived from the Greek ''poiesis'', "making"), also called verse, is a form of literature that uses aesthetic and often rhythmic qualities of language − such as phonaesthetics, sound symbolism, and metre − to evoke meanings in ...

Widsith "Widsith" ( ang, Wīdsīþ, "far-traveller", lit. "wide-journey"), also known as "The Traveller's Song", is an Old English poem of 143 lines. It survives only in the ''Exeter Book'', a manuscript of Old English poetry compiled in the late-10th c ...

'': Scholars such as Schütte and Kendrick have pointed out that there was probably an even earlier mention of the people of Öland in 98 AD, by

Tacitus Publius Cornelius Tacitus, known simply as Tacitus ( , ; – ), was a Roman historian and politician. Tacitus is widely regarded as one of the greatest Roman historiography, Roman historians by modern scholars. The surviving portions of his t ...

, who called them the " Aviones": In Swedish history, the island long served as a royal game park; Ottenby and

Halltorps Halltorp was one of the earliest manor on the island of Öland, Sweden, dating from the 11th century AD. In early documents it is known as Hauldtorp, and it is cited as one of the early Viking era settlements of Öland. From early times it ha ...

were in particular selected by the Swedish Crown in the

Middle Ages In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire a ...

as royal game reserves.

Geography

Öland is the second largest of the islands of Sweden and was historically divided into one chartered city and five hundreds.

Cities and villages

* Alby * Bläsinge * Borgholm (1816) *

Gårdby Gårdby is a locality situated in Mörbylånga Municipality, Kalmar County, Sweden Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden,The United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names states that the country's formal name is the Kingdom of ...

* Gettlinge * Eriksöre *

Fagerum Fagerum is a small village on Öland. It belongs to the municipality of Borgholm Borgholm () is a city and the seat of Borgholm Municipality, Kalmar County, Sweden with 4,401 inhabitants in 2020. It is located on the island of Öland in the Balt ...

* Färjestaden * Hulterstad * Köpingsvik * Mörbylånga * Norra Möckleby * Öjkroken * Ottenby * Seby * Segerstad * Södra Sandby * Stenåsa

Hundreds

Åkerbo Hundred A hundred is a geographic division formerly used in northern Germanic countries and related colonies, which historically was used to divide a larger region into smaller administrative divisions. The equivalent term in Swedish is (in Uppland also ...

* Algutsrum Hundred * Gräsgård Hundred * Möckleby Hundred * Runsten Hundred * Slättbo Hundred

Facts

* Highest Hill: Högsrum, * Largest lake: Hornsjön * Length: * Width (at widest point):

Climate

Öland has a semi-continental

oceanic climate An oceanic climate, also known as a marine climate, is the humid temperate climate sub-type in Köppen classification ''Cfb'', typical of west coasts in higher middle latitudes of continents, generally featuring cool summers and mild winters ( ...

with vast temperature differences between summer and winter. There are two main weather stations, one located at the northern edge and the other at the southern edge. In spite of the more northerly latitude, Öland's northern edge is far milder than its southern edge, since air warm over greater surrounding landmasses during days, whilst retaining heavy maritime features during night. It is also more representative for the island's general climate, with only the deep south being much cooler down a narrow peninsula.

Environment

The dominant environmental feature of the island is the Stora Alvaret, a

limestone pavement A limestone pavement is a natural karst landform consisting of a flat, incised surface of exposed limestone that resembles an artificial pavement. The term is mainly used in the UK and Ireland, where many of these landforms have developed dist ...

which is the

habitat In ecology, the term habitat summarises the array of resources, physical and biotic factors that are present in an area, such as to support the survival and reproduction of a particular species. A species habitat can be seen as the physical ...

of numerous rare and

endangered species An endangered species is a species that is very likely to become extinct in the near future, either worldwide or in a particular political jurisdiction. Endangered species may be at risk due to factors such as habitat loss, poaching and inv ...

. The first known scientific study of the biota of the Stora Alvaret occurred in the year 1741 with the visit of Linnaeus. The underlying bedrock layer is mainly

Cambrian The Cambrian Period ( ; sometimes symbolized C with bar, Ꞓ) was the first geological period of the Paleozoic Era, and of the Phanerozoic Eon. The Cambrian lasted 53.4 million years from the end of the preceding Ediacaran Period 538.8 million ...

sandstone Sandstone is a clastic sedimentary rock composed mainly of sand-sized (0.0625 to 2 mm) silicate grains. Sandstones comprise about 20–25% of all sedimentary rocks. Most sandstone is composed of quartz or feldspar (both silicates) ...

and alum

chert Chert () is a hard, fine-grained sedimentary rock composed of microcrystalline or cryptocrystalline quartz, the mineral form of silicon dioxide (SiO2). Chert is characteristically of biological origin, but may also occur inorganically as a prec ...

, and Ordovician

limestone Limestone ( calcium carbonate ) is a type of carbonate sedimentary rock which is the main source of the material lime. It is composed mostly of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different crystal forms of . Limestone forms whe ...

that dates from an approximate range of 540 to 450 million years ago. The Cambrian

trilobite Trilobites (; meaning "three lobes") are extinct marine arthropods that form the class Trilobita. Trilobites form one of the earliest-known groups of arthropods. The first appearance of trilobites in the fossil record defines the base of the At ...

''Eccaparadoxides oelandicus'' is named after the island. Öland is served by a perimeter highway, Route 136. In 2011 the Gripen Gas company filed a request for test drilling on Öland for natural gas. The request was approved by Bergsstaten, the governmental agency responsible for handling geological issues regarding prospecting. The approval has been met with criticism on the municipal and county administrative levels, citing that the many cracks in the limestone bedrock could cause the groundwater to become contaminated by the gas prospecting.

Culture

The

Borgholm Castle Borgholm Castle ( sv, Borgholms slott) in Borgholm, Sweden, is today only a ruin of the fortress that was first built in the second half of the 13th century and rebuilt many times in later centuries. It is linked to Halltorp estate, to the sou ...

was built between 1669 and 1681 for Queen

Hedvig Eleonora Hedwig Eleonora of Holstein-Gottorp (23 October 1636 – 24 November 1715) was Queen of Sweden from 1654 until 1660 as the wife of King Charles X Gustav. She served as regent during the minority of her son, King Charles XI, from 1660 until 1672, ...

, and designed by Nicodemus Tessin the Elder. In its vicinity sits the

Solliden Palace Solliden Palace -- commonly known as just ''Solliden --'' is the summer residence of the Swedish Royal Family and the personal private property of King Carl XVI Gustaf. The palace is situated near the Borgholm Castle ruin on the island of Öland ...

, summer home to the

royal family A royal family is the immediate family of kings/queens, emirs/emiras, sultans/ sultanas, or raja/ rani and sometimes their extended family. The term imperial family appropriately describes the family of an emperor or empress, and the term ...

. The

habitat of southern Öland, known as Stora Alvaret, has been entered as a site of the

UNESCO The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) aimed at promoting world peace and security through international cooperation in education, arts, sciences and culture. It ...

World Heritage A World Heritage Site is a landmark or area with legal protection by an international convention administered by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). World Heritage Sites are designated by UNESCO for h ...

program. Features of this are the many rare species found;

prehistory Prehistory, also known as pre-literary history, is the period of human history between the use of the first stone tools by hominins 3.3 million years ago and the beginning of recorded history with the invention of writing systems. The use of ...

sites such as Gettlinge and

; numerous old wooden windmills left standing, some of which date to the 17th century; and the special geological alvar landscape. For a decade, Öland has been organizing an annual harvest festival called ''Skördefesten'' that takes place every October. In terms of this event, the island's

farmer A farmer is a person engaged in agriculture, raising living organisms for food or raw materials. The term usually applies to people who do some combination of raising field crops, orchards, vineyards, poultry, or other livestock. A farmer mig ...

s gather with farmers from the rest of the country and sell their crops and let those that are interested take part in everyday life on their farms, among other activities. There are also many art exhibitions for display during Skördefesten especially during the art night Konstnatten. The romantic poet

Erik Johan Stagnelius Erik Johan Stagnelius (14 October 17933 April 1823) was a Swedish Romantic poet, playwright and romantic critic of political economy.https://www.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:1086360/FULLTEXT01.pdf 1810 to 1840 was a time of blossoming in ...

was born in the Öland parish of Gärdslösa in 1793 and lived there until 16 years of age. He wrote several poems about the island. More modern writers living on or writing about Öland include novelist Margit Friberg (1904–1997), poet Anna Rydstedt (1928–1994), novelist Birgitta Trotzig (1929-2011), poet Lennart Sjögren (1930-), children novelist

Eva Bexell Eva Bexell (born 1945) is a Swedish author of children's books. She debuted in 1976 with the book ''Prostens barnbarn''. Her books have been translated to Danish, English, Finnish, Japanese, Norwegian and German, and as of November 2007, sold over ...

(1945-), poet Tom Hedlund (1945-), novelist

Johan Theorin Johan Theorin (born in 1963 Gothenburg) is a Swedish journalist and author. Throughout his life, Johan Theorin has been a regular visitor to the island of Öland in the Baltic sea. His mother’s family—sailors, fishermen and stone cutters—ha ...

(1963-), poet and novelist Magnus Utvik (1964-) and novelist Per Planhammar (1965-).

Skördefest

Skördefest is an annual

harvest Harvesting is the process of gathering a ripe crop from the fields. Reaping is the cutting of grain or pulse for harvest, typically using a scythe, sickle, or reaper. On smaller farms with minimal mechanization, harvesting is the most labor-i ...

festival on Öland, held every September, which attracts thousands of visitors. Pumpkins are placed upon the top of bales of hay, a signal to buyers that fall harvest goods are available for sale at the location. In Borgholm, a ''pumpagubbe'' (pumpkin man), a large scarecrow like figure, built entirely of gourds, is erected at town center. The pumpagubbe celebrates the bounty of the Fall Harvest.

Sports

Football in the province is administered by

Smålands Fotbollförbund The Smålands Fotbollförbund ''(Småland Football Association)'' is one of the 24 district organisations of the Swedish Football Association. It administers lower tier football in the historical provinces of Småland and Öland. Background Sm ...

. Each year the King's Rally, a vintage motorcade, takes place in Öland.

References

External links

* *
Increasing Mobility at the Neolithic/Bronze Age Transition - sulphur isotope evidence from Öland, Sweden

World Heritage profile
{{DEFAULTSORT:Oland Islands of Kalmar County Provinces of Sweden Swedish islands in the Baltic Ramsar sites in Sweden