Ottenby () is a town on 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 ...

, Sweden, located in Ås parish,

Mörbylånga Municipality Mörbylånga Municipality (''Mörbylånga kommun'') is a municipality in Kalmar County, in south-eastern Sweden, located on the island of Öland in the Baltic Sea. The seat is located in the town of Mörbylånga, while the largest town is Färjest ...

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 ...

. Ottenby is located just north of the southern tip of Öland, over thirty km south of the area's main town,

Mörbylånga Mörbylånga is a locality situated on the southern part of the island of Öland and is the seat of Mörbylånga Municipality, Kalmar County, Sweden with 1,780 inhabitants in 2010. Other settlements in southern Öland are Alby, the site of a Meso ...

. Ottenby is also the name of the mansion and a royal demesne, now a nature reserve. Sweden's tallest lighthouse,

Långe Jan Långe Jan ("Tall John") is a Swedish lighthouse located at the south cape of Öland in the Baltic Sea, Sweden's second largest island. It is one of Sweden's most famous lighthouses along with Kullen, Vinga and Landsort, and also the tallest ligh ...

, is just south of Ottenby.

Reserve and demesne

Ottenby is the name of a mansion (see Ottenby kungsgård) and the nearby

nature reserve A nature reserve (also known as a wildlife refuge, wildlife sanctuary, biosphere reserve or bioreserve, natural or nature preserve, or nature conservation area) is a protected area of importance for flora, fauna, or features of geological or ...

, formerly a royal game reserve stocked with

fallow deer ''Dama'' is a genus of deer in the subfamily Cervinae, commonly referred to as fallow deer. Name The name fallow is derived from the deer's pale brown colour. The Latin word ''dāma'' or ''damma'', used for roe deer, gazelles, and antelopes, ...

, and King

Charles X Gustav of Sweden Charles X Gustav, also Carl Gustav ( sv, Karl X Gustav; 8 November 1622 – 13 February 1660), was King of Sweden from 1654 until his death. He was the son of John Casimir, Count Palatine of Zweibrücken-Kleeburg and Catherine of Sweden. Afte ...

built a

drystone wall Dry stone, sometimes called drystack or, in Scotland, drystane, is a building method by which structures are constructed from Rock (geology), stones without any Mortar (masonry), mortar to bind them together. Dry stone structures are stable ...

to confine the native deer. The reserve is situated at the southern edge of the

Stora Alvaret Stora Alvaret (; "the Great Alvar") is an alvar, a barren limestone terrace, in the southern half of the island of Öland, Sweden. Stora Alvaret is a dagger shaped expanse almost long and about at the widest north end. The area of this formation ...

, a unique

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 ...

ecosystem An ecosystem (or ecological system) consists of all the organisms and the physical environment with which they interact. These biotic and abiotic components are linked together through nutrient cycles and energy flows. Energy enters the syste ...

designated as a

World Heritage Site 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 ...

comprising most of the southern half of the island of Öland. Ottenby offers diverse

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 ...

s including

coast The coast, also known as the coastline or seashore, is defined as the area where land meets the ocean, or as a line that forms the boundary between the land and the coastline. The Earth has around of coastline. Coasts are important zones in n ...

marsh A marsh is a wetland that is dominated by herbaceous rather than woody plant species.Keddy, P.A. 2010. Wetland Ecology: Principles and Conservation (2nd edition). Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK. 497 p Marshes can often be found at ...

, marine,

woodland A woodland () is, in the broad sense, land covered with trees, or in a narrow sense, synonymous with wood (or in the U.S., the ''plurale tantum'' woods), a low-density forest forming open habitats with plenty of sunlight and limited shade (see ...

and

alvar An alvar is a biological environment based on a limestone plain with thin or no soil and, as a result, sparse grassland vegetation. Often flooded in the spring, and affected by drought in midsummer, alvars support a distinctive group of prairie ...

. Nearest villages include Alby,

Hulterstad Hulterstad is a small coastal town on the southeastern part of the island of Öland, Sweden. Hulterstad is situated at the eastern fringe of the Stora Alvaret, a limestone pavement habitat which hosts a diversity of rare plants and has been desi ...

Gettlinge Gettlinge is a village in the southwest portion of the island of Öland, Sweden. It is known for its impressive Viking stone ship burial ground. Gettlinge is situated on the western fringe of the Stora Alvaret, a World Heritage Site designated ...

, and

Triberga Triberga is a village on the island of Öland in the kingdom of Sweden. For many years Triberga has been investigated for its unusual flora and fauna including littoral species.Göran Wahlenberg, ''Flora Svecica enumerans plantas Sveciæ indigenas' ...

. Ottenby's name is first mentioned in writing year in 1282. In the Middle Ages it comprised 19 gardens and belonged to

Nydala Abbey Nydala Abbey ( sv, Nydala kloster) was a Cistercian monastery in the province of Småland, Sweden, near the lake Rusken. Although the abbey ceased to operate in the 16th century, its church was renovated and converted into a Protestant church durin ...

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 ...

. After the abbey's appropriation by

Gustav Vasa Gustav I, born Gustav Eriksson of the Vasa noble family and later known as Gustav Vasa (12 May 1496 – 29 September 1560), was King of Sweden from 1523 until his death in 1560, previously self-recognised Protector of the Realm ('' Riksföre ...

in the 1520s the mansion became the site of a stud farm; from 1831 to 1892 it was a stud farm for the Swedish army, and later a business. The main building was erected in 1804 and designed by court architect Carl Fredrik Sundevall. It is a whitewashed stone building with a hipped roof. In 1935 Ottenby demesne was declared a national monument; the farm is owned by the National Property Board and farmed by the Wiström family.

Area prehistory

The oldest known human settlement on the southern part of Oland is slightly to the north at Alby, dating to the

mesolithic The Mesolithic (Greek: μέσος, ''mesos'' 'middle' + λίθος, ''lithos'' 'stone') or Middle Stone Age is the Old World archaeological period between the Upper Paleolithic and the Neolithic. The term Epipaleolithic is often used synonymous ...

era and 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.C.Michael Hogan, ''Alby Mesolithic Village'', The Megalithic Portal, ed. A. Burnham, 2007
/ref> The village prehistory dates to 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 ...

when settlers 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 ...

connecting the island via the

Kalmar Strait The Kalmar Strait ( sv, Kalmarsund) is a strait in the Baltic Sea, located between the Swedish island of Öland and the province of Småland of the Swedish mainland. The strait is about long and between and in width. There is a road bridge acr ...

about 6000 to 7000 BCE.

References

Öland Nature reserves in Sweden Ramsar sites in Sweden Geography of Kalmar County Tourist attractions in Kalmar County {{Kalmar-geo-stub