Älvsborg County ( sv, Älvsborgs län) was a

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

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 SwedenUNGEGN World Geographical Names, Sweden./ref> is a Nordic countries, Nordic c ...

until 1997, when it was merged with the counties of Gothenburg & Bohus and Skaraborg to form

Västra Götaland County Västra Götaland County ( sv, Västra Götalands län) is a county or ''län'' on the western coast of Sweden. The county is the second most populous of Sweden's counties and it comprises 49 municipalities (''kommuner''). Its population of 1, ...

. The county corresponded to the traditional province of

Dalsland Dalsland () is a Swedish traditional province, or ''landskap'', situated in Götaland in southern Sweden. Lying to the west of Lake Vänern, it is bordered by Värmland to the north, Västergötland to the southeast, Bohuslän to the west, an ...

and the central part of the province of

Västergötland Västergötland (), also known as West Gothland or the Latinized version Westrogothia in older literature, is one of the 25 traditional non-administrative provinces of Sweden (''landskap'' in Swedish), situated in the southwest of Sweden. Vä ...

, and its coat of arms was created by quartering the respective arms of those provinces. Älvsborg County initially encompassed the entire western half of

, and was named after Älvsborg Castle, which is where the county administration was initially based. Älvsborg was demolished in the 1660s and the county seat moved to nearby

Gothenburg Gothenburg (; abbreviated Gbg; sv, Göteborg ) is the second-largest city in Sweden, fifth-largest in the Nordic countries, and capital of the Västra Götaland County. It is situated by the Kattegat, on the west coast of Sweden, and has a ...

, but the county continued to bear the name Älvsborg. Under the 1658 Treaty of Roskilde, the Norwegian province of Bohuslen ( sv, Bohuslän) was transferred to Sweden, and in 1680 it was decided to form a new county comprising Bohuslän and the western part of Västergötland, creating the new Gothenburg and Bohus County. The seat of Älvsborg County (which had become even more of a

misnomer A misnomer is a name that is incorrectly or unsuitably applied. Misnomers often arise because something was named long before its correct nature was known, or because an earlier form of something has been replaced by a later form to which the name ...

, as the site of the former Älvsborg fortress now lay within the new Gothenburg and Bohus County) therefore had to be moved again, this time to Vänersborg.

References

Västra Götaland County Former counties of Sweden 1634 establishments in Sweden 1997 disestablishments in Sweden {{VästraGötaland-geo-stub

See also

References