Oskarshamn Municipality (''Oskarshamns kommun'') is a

municipality 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 ...

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. G ...

in south-eastern Sweden, where the city

Oskarshamn Oskarshamn is a coastal city and the seat of Oskarshamn Municipality, Kalmar County, Sweden with 17,258 inhabitants in 2010. History Etymology Döderhultsvik was the original name before a town charter was granted in 1856. The name was then chang ...

is seat. The amalgamations in the present municipality took place in 1967 when three rural municipalities joined the ''City of Oskarshamn'', which was transformed into a municipality of unitary type in 1971. In 1966 construction started on the first nuclear power plant, OKG, within the present municipality. Since then two more reactors have been built and the plant today produces about 10% of Sweden's

electricity Electricity is the set of physical phenomena associated with the presence and motion of matter that has a property of electric charge. Electricity is related to magnetism, both being part of the phenomenon of electromagnetism, as describ ...

. In October 2020 the municipal council voted in favour of the building of Forsmark nuclear waste repository, with the final decision needing to be made by the Swedish government.

Coat of arms

Oskarshamn was named after King

Oscar I of Sweden Oscar I (born Joseph François Oscar Bernadotte; 4 July 1799 – 8 July 1859) was King of Sweden and Norway from 8 March 1844 until his death. He was the second monarch of the House of Bernadotte. The only child of King Charles XIV John, Oscar i ...

. The top of the coat of arms show the insignia of the King. In the other fields there are symbols for shipping (the anchor), trade (the staff of Mercury) and wealth (the cornucopia). Its current design stems from 1942, but it basically only differers from the old in the alignment of the symbols. The coat of arms was re-used for the new municipality after 1971 and the arms of Döderhult and Misterhult became obsolete.

Localities

There are nine

urban area An urban area, built-up area or urban agglomeration is a human settlement with a high population density and infrastructure of built environment. Urban areas are created through urbanization and are categorized by urban morphology as cities ...

s (also called localities, Swedish: ''tätorter'') in Oskarshamn Municipality. In the table the localities are listed according to the size of the population as of December 31, 2005. The municipal seat is in bold characters. 1) A minor part of Emsfors is in Mönsterås Municipality

Politics

The Swedish Social Democratic Party has been governing the city and later the municipality since 1932, however not always forming an absolute majority. It usually builds a majority with the Left Party of Sweden. All parties that are represented in the Riksdag are also represented in the municipal assembly ''

kommunfullmäktige A municipal council ( sv, Kommunfullmäktige) is the decision-making body governing each of the 290 municipalities of Sweden. Though the Swedish Local Government Act ( sv, Kommunallagen) uses the term "municipal assembly" in an English translation ...

''.

Media

Oskarshamn has two local newspapers: ''Oskarshamns-Tidningen'' (

conservative Conservatism is a cultural, social, and political philosophy that seeks to promote and to preserve traditional institutions, practices, and values. The central tenets of conservatism may vary in relation to the culture and civilization in ...

) and ''Nyheterna'' ( social democratic).

Notability

The

Blå Jungfrun Blå Jungfrun, also known as "Blåkulla", in English sometimes rendered literally as The Blue Maiden is a Swedish island in the Baltic Sea. It is situated in the Kalmar Strait, between the mainland province of Småland and the island province o ...

is a small island outside the coast, between the mainland and the island of

Öland Öland (, ; ; sometimes written ''Øland'' in other Scandinavian languages, and often ''Oland'' internationally; la, Oelandia) is the second-largest Swedish island and the smallest of the traditional provinces of Sweden. Öland has an area ...

, and is classified as a national park.

References

Statistics Sweden

External links

Oskarshamn Municipality
- Official site
IK Oskarshamn
- Official site of IK Oskarshamn, Oskarshamn's hockey team {{Authority control Municipalities of Kalmar County