Vetlanda Municipality (''Vetlanda 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 ...

Jönköping County Jönköping County ( sv, Jönköpings län) is a county or '' län'' in southern Sweden. It borders the counties of Halland, Västra Götaland, Östergötland, Kalmar and Kronoberg. The total county population was 356,291 inhabitants in Sept ...

, southern Sweden. The town of

Vetlanda Vetlanda () is a locality and the seat of Vetlanda Municipality, Jönköping County, Sweden with 13,050 inhabitants in 2010. History Vetlanda was still nothing more than a village for several centuries. With the 1840s population boom in Småland ...

is the municipality's seat. The municipality was created in 1971 when the ''City of Vetlanda'' (instituted in 1920) was amalgamated with the surrounding rural municipalities to form a unitary municipality. In 1863, when the first local government acts in Sweden came into force, there were more than 20 entities within the area of the present municipality. Vetlanda is the birthplace of

Johan Franzén Johan Marcus Gunnar Franzén (; born 23 December 1979) is a Swedish former professional ice hockey winger who played 11 seasons for the Detroit Red Wings of the National Hockey League (NHL). His career ended early in the 2015-16 season due to ...

, a professional

ice hockey Ice hockey (or simply hockey) is a team sport played on ice skates, usually on an ice skating rink with lines and markings specific to the sport. It belongs to a family of sports called hockey. In ice hockey, two opposing teams use ice h ...

center who played for the Detroit Red Wings of the

National Hockey League The National Hockey League (NHL; french: Ligue nationale de hockey—LNH, ) is a professional ice hockey league in North America comprising 32 teams—25 in the United States and 7 in Canada. It is considered to be the top ranked professional ...

Geography

Vetlanda Municipality is the largest municipality in Jönköping County. The municipality is situated on the

South Swedish highlands 300px, Aerial view of farms and forest in Ydre Municipality. 250px, The forested landscape of the South Swedish highlands, seen from Eksjö_Municipality.html"_;"title="Skuruhatt_in_Eksjö_Municipality">Skuruhatt_in_Eksjö_Municipality. The_Sout ...

, an area situated some 250 meters above sea level and also includes

Eksjö Municipality Eksjö Municipality (''Eksjö kommun'') is a municipalities of Sweden, municipality in Jönköping County, southern Sweden, where the town Eksjö is seat. The present municipality was created in 1971 when the former ''City of Eksjö'' was amalgam ...

and

Nässjö Municipality Nässjö Municipality (''Nässjö kommun'') is a municipality in Jönköping County, southern Sweden where the town Nässjö is situated. The present municipality was created in 1971 when the ''City of Nässjö'' (instituted in 1914) was amalgam ...

. It is a sight-worthy nature that is visited by tourists for the scenery alone. The distance to any of the three largest Swedish cities

Malmö Malmö (, ; da, Malmø ) is the largest city in the Swedish county (län) of Scania (Skåne). It is the third-largest city in Sweden, after Stockholm and Gothenburg, and the sixth-largest city in the Nordic region, with a municipal pop ...

(south-west), Gothenburg (west) and Stockholm (north-east) is rather similar; about 300 km.

Localities

There are 12

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 a Tätort or locality) in Vetlanda 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.

History

The history of Vetlanda goes back to at least the

medieval 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 ...

age when it was the seat for the regional assembly called ''

þing A thing, german: ding, ang, þing, enm, thing. (that is, "assembly" or folkmoot) was a governing assembly in early Germanic society, made up of the free people of the community presided over by a lawspeaker. Things took place at regular in ...

'' (thing). According to the imaginations of Petter Rudebeck (1660–1710), Vetlanda was before that known as Vitala, and the centre of a mythological kingdom. However, all later archeological research has failed in finding any evidence of it. But the myth was popular during the 18th and 19th century, which displays in the naming of several companies and locations around the municipality.

Sports

Vetlanda boasts successful clubs in bandy (

Vetlanda BK Vetlanda BK is a bandy club in Vetlanda, Sweden. Vetlanda BK was established in December 1944. While the exact date seems to be unknown, 6 December is usually credited. On 1 January 1945 the club played its first game, 4–4 on away soil against ...

) and in motorcycle speedway ( Vetlanda Speedway).

References

Statistics Sweden

External links

Vetlanda Municipality
- Official site

{{authority control Municipalities of Jönköping County