Ekerö Municipality () is a

municipality A municipality is usually a single administrative division having municipal corporation, corporate status and powers of self-government or jurisdiction as granted by national and regional laws to which it is subordinate. The term ''municipality' ...

in the

province A province is an administrative division within a country or sovereign state, state. The term derives from the ancient Roman , which was the major territorial and administrative unit of the Roman Empire, Roman Empire's territorial possessions ou ...

Uppland Uppland is a historical province or ' on the eastern coast of Sweden, just north of Stockholm, the capital. It borders Södermanland, Västmanland and Gästrikland. It is also bounded by lake Mälaren and the Baltic Sea. The name literally ...

in Stockholm County in east central Sweden. The name derives from the name of the main island within the municipality whose name is Ekerön, and literally means "Oak Island". Its seat is located in the town of Ekerö. The King of Sweden resides in Ekerö Municipality, at Drottningholm Palace (see below). Originally, when the first local government acts were implemented in Sweden in 1863, eight rural municipalities were created, each corresponding to an old

parish A parish is a territorial entity in many Christianity, Christian denominations, constituting a division within a diocese. A parish is under the pastoral care and clerical jurisdiction of a priest#Christianity, priest, often termed a parish pries ...

. The municipal reform of 1952 grouped them in two new larger entities. The next reform in 1971 merged them into the present municipality.

Geography

Ekerö is the only municipality in the Lake Mälaren region composed exclusively of islands. Land elevation has reduced the number of islands and skerries to 140, the largest of which are Adelsö, Munsö, Ekerö, Färingsö, and Lovö. 2000 years ago, during the

Roman Iron Age The archaeology of Northern Europe studies the prehistory of Scandinavian Peninsula, Scandinavia and the adjacent North European Plain, roughly corresponding to the territories of modern Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Northern Germany, Poland, the Net ...

, Färingsön was more of an

archipelago An archipelago ( ), sometimes called an island group or island chain, is a chain, cluster, or collection of islands. An archipelago may be in an ocean, a sea, or a smaller body of water. Example archipelagos include the Aegean Islands (the o ...

of twenty islands.Tynderfeldt

Heritage

The municipality contains two

UNESCO The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO ) is a List of specialized agencies of the United Nations, specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) with the aim of promoting world peace and International secur ...

World Heritage Site World Heritage Sites are landmarks and areas with legal protection under an treaty, international treaty administered by UNESCO for having cultural, historical, or scientific significance. The sites are judged to contain "cultural and natural ...

s. One is

Birka Birka (''Birca'' in medieval sources), on the island of Björkö, Ekerö, Björkö (lit. "Birch Island") in present-day Sweden, was an important Viking Age trading center which handled goods from Scandinavia as well as many parts of Continent ...

, an old

Viking Age The Viking Age (about ) was the period during the Middle Ages when Norsemen known as Vikings undertook large-scale raiding, colonising, conquest, and trading throughout Europe and reached North America. The Viking Age applies not only to their ...

village, and the other is Drottningholm Palace and its surroundings. Drottningholm, located on the Lovö island, was originally a

Renaissance The Renaissance ( , ) is a Periodization, period of history and a European cultural movement covering the 15th and 16th centuries. It marked the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity and was characterized by an effort to revive and sur ...

palace built by King John III for Queen Catherine Jagellon. On December 30, 1661, the old palace burned down. Queen Dowager Hedvig Eleonora had a new palace erected out of the preserved walls and cellar vaults from King John III:s palace in the French Baroque style to the design of architect Nicodemus Tessin the Elder, a work later completed by

Nicodemus Tessin the Younger Count Nicodemus Tessin the Younger (23 May 1654 – 10 April 1728) was a Swedish Baroque architect, city planner, and administrator. The son of Nicodemus Tessin the Elder and the father of Carl Gustaf Tessin, Tessin the Younger was the midd ...

Carl Hårleman Baron Carl Hårleman (27 August 1700 – 9 February 1753) was a Sweden, Swedish architect. Biography Hårleman was born in Stockholm, son of the garden architect and head of the royal parks and gardens Johan Hårleman, who had been Ennoblemen ...

, and

Jean Eric Rehn Jean Eric Rehn (18 May 1717, Stockholm - 19 May 1793, Stockholm) was a Swedish architect, engraver and designer. Biography His father, Eric, was a government ombudsman for the Sámi people. While still a boy, he became part of the , a forerunn ...

. Since 1981 it is the permanent residence of the royal family, but large parts of the park are accessible to the public. The palace features several uniquely preserved structures, including the Palace Theatre, inaugurated in 1766 and still delivering operas using the preserved original machinery; and the

Chinese Pavilion A Chinese pavilion ( Chinese 亭, pinyin ''tíng'') is a garden pavilion in traditional Chinese architecture. While often found within temples, pavilions are not exclusively religious structures. Many Chinese parks and gardens feature pavilions t ...

, the

Rococo Rococo, less commonly Roccoco ( , ; or ), also known as Late Baroque, is an exceptionally ornamental and dramatic style of architecture, art and decoration which combines asymmetry, scrolling curves, gilding, white and pastel colours, sculpte ...

design of Carl Fredrik Adelcrantz filled with Chinese luxury delivered by the

Swedish East India Company The Swedish East India Company (; SOIC) was founded in Gothenburg, Sweden, in 1731 for the purpose of conducting trade with India, China and the Far East. The venture was inspired by the success of the Dutch East India Company and the British Ea ...

Birka on the Björkö island is the oldest urban structure in Sweden, founded in the mid eighth century. In the ninth century,

Ansgar Ansgar (8 September 801 – 3 February 865), also known as Anskar, Saint Ansgar, Saint Anschar or Oscar, was Archbishopric of Bremen, Archbishop of Hamburg-Bremen in the northern part of the Kingdom of the East Franks. Ansgar became known as the ...

Archbishop of Hamburg-Bremen This list records the bishops of the Archdiocese of Bremen, Roman Catholic diocese of Bremen (), supposedly a suffragan of the Archdiocese of Cologne, Archbishopric of Cologne, then of the bishops of Bremen, who were in personal union archbishops ...

, made two failed attempts to convert its inhabitants. The settlement was finally abandoned in the late tenth century for unknown reasons. The excavations of the approximately 1.100 graves in the area started in 1871 and have continued since. A museum was created in 1995, and in summers various boats carry large numbers of tourists to the island.

Other notable historical sites

Other historical sights of interest are several

runestone A runestone is typically a raised stone with a runic alphabet, runic inscription, but the term can also be applied to inscriptions on boulders and on bedrock. The tradition of erecting runestones as a memorial to dead men began in the 4th centur ...

s and other

Viking Vikings were seafaring people originally from Scandinavia (present-day Denmark, Norway, and Sweden), who from the late 8th to the late 11th centuries raided, pirated, traded, and settled throughout parts of Europe.Roesdahl, pp. 9� ...

remains, eight

medieval In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the 5th to the late 15th centuries, similarly to the post-classical period of World history (field), global history. It began with the fall of the West ...

churches, and old towns. . On the Adelsö Island is Hovgården, together with Birka a world heritage site, featuring barrows, thick walls, and runestones. There is also Alsnö hus, the ruins of the summer residence of Magnus Barnlock were the Ordinance of Alsnö created the foundation of the

Swedish nobility The Swedish nobility (, or , ) has historically been a legally or socially privileged Social class, class in Sweden, and part of the so-called ''frälse'' (a derivation from Old Swedish meaning ''free neck''). The archaic term for nobility, ''fr ...

, and a Romanesque church from the 12th century. Next to this Crown palace is the residential area Drottningholmsmalmen ("Drottningholm Ridge/

Esker An esker, eskar, eschar, or os, sometimes called an ''asar'', ''osar'', or ''serpent kame'', is a long, winding ridge of stratified sand and gravel, examples of which occur in glaciated and formerly glaciated regions of Europe and North Amer ...

") which draws its history back to the ''Torvesund'' manor built in 1579-80 and which served as a place of refuge for the

Jesuit The Society of Jesus (; abbreviation: S.J. or SJ), also known as the Jesuit Order or the Jesuits ( ; ), is a religious order (Catholic), religious order of clerics regular of pontifical right for men in the Catholic Church headquartered in Rom ...

s following the

Reformation The Reformation, also known as the Protestant Reformation or the European Reformation, was a time of major Theology, theological movement in Western Christianity in 16th-century Europe that posed a religious and political challenge to the p ...

. During the 18th century, soldiers, carpenters and other craftsmen working at The Royal Palace settled in the area. Intentions were to develop it into a suburb to the palace like at the Versailles Palace, and this end the area was granted the status of a city to attract entrepreneurs and artists to the royal court. During the reign of King

Gustav III Gustav III (29 March 1792), also called ''Gustavus III'', was King of Sweden from 1771 until his assassination in 1792. He was the eldest son of King Adolf Frederick and Queen Louisa Ulrika of Sweden. Gustav was a vocal opponent of what he saw ...

had several buildings erected, including the ''Långa raden'' (the "Long Row") to accommodate the royal life guard. By 1815 78 properties existed in the area. However, it failed to develop in the direction sketched-out by Gustav III, and instead evolved into a summer residence area inhabited by wealthy burghers, the large-scales villas in a wide range of styles have given the area its characteristics. In the middle of the 20th century, several buildings by well-known Swedish architects, including Nils Tesch, Ralph Erskine, Peter Celsing and Bengt Lindroos, were added.Sundström Kanton is a group of twenty buildings next to the

built in the 1750s and 1760s, intended to be a

mercantile Trade involves the transfer of goods and services from one person or entity to another, often in exchange for money. Economists refer to a system or network that allows trade as a market. Traders generally negotiate through a medium of cred ...

prototype settlement. 70-80 people lived there for a few decades producing luxury items for the royal court and the nobility, including some of the interior of the China Pavillin.Stockholm County Museum, ''Lovön - Drottningsholmsområdet'' The buildings later inspired author Elsa Beskow to some of her fairy tales. Kungshatt ("King's Hat") is a rocky island south of Lovön where, according to a legend, a king Erik Väderhatt ("Eric Weather Hat"), so named because of his fortune with the winds which he could foretell with his hat, escaped his enemies by jumping from the cliff with his horse. The location for this event was furnished with a copper hat, now substituted with an iron hat. Svartsjo castle in Sweden

Svartsjö Palace was originally a Folkung mansion. The palace King Gustav I and his sons had built here was destroyed by fire in 1687. The

rococo Rococo, less commonly Roccoco ( , ; or ), also known as Late Baroque, is an exceptionally ornamental and dramatic style of architecture, art and decoration which combines asymmetry, scrolling curves, gilding, white and pastel colours, sculpte ...

palace, built 1735–1739 to the design of

and later expanded by Queen Louisa Ulrika, was neglected for centuries before being restored. Its

Baroque The Baroque ( , , ) is a Western Style (visual arts), style of Baroque architecture, architecture, Baroque music, music, Baroque dance, dance, Baroque painting, painting, Baroque sculpture, sculpture, poetry, and other arts that flourished from ...

and

English garden The English landscape garden, also called English landscape park or simply the English garden (, , , , ), is a style of "landscape" garden which emerged in England in the early 18th century, and spread across Europe, replacing the more formal ...

s are preserved. Hilleshög Church is a mostly Romanesque edifice, built in

granite Granite ( ) is a coarse-grained (phanerite, phaneritic) intrusive rock, intrusive igneous rock composed mostly of quartz, alkali feldspar, and plagioclase. It forms from magma with a high content of silica and alkali metal oxides that slowly coo ...

and

brick A brick is a type of construction material used to build walls, pavements and other elements in masonry construction. Properly, the term ''brick'' denotes a unit primarily composed of clay. But is now also used informally to denote building un ...

, with some parts from the 17th and 18th centuries and later additions. Many of the paintings in the interior, dating back to the end of the 13th century and the early 15th century, were painted over in the 18th century but were restored in the 1920s and in 2002, together with some of the furniture.Wallström Ekebyhov is a real estate created around 1630. Its main building, Ekebyhov Palace, is a wooden structure begun in 1674 and completed in 1704. It is the oldest preserved wooden palace in Europe. The gardens of the palace boasts several unique plants and features a café. It is since 1980 owned by the municipality.Ekerö Municipality, ''Ekebyhovs slott'' Skytteholm is a

seat farm In Scandinavia, a seat farm or manor farm (; Norwegian language, Norwegian /; or ; ) was a farm where a nobility, nobleman had his permanent residence. They were found in the Kingdom of Denmark, the Kingdom of Norway, the Kingdom of Sweden, and ...

. Its main building, Skytteholm Mansion, was one of the mansions of Johan Skytte,

mentor Mentorship is the patronage, influence, guidance, or direction given by a mentor. A mentor is someone who teaches or gives help and advice to a less experienced and often younger person. In an organizational setting, a mentor influences the perso ...

of Gustavus Adolphus the Great, had built in the Lake Mälaren region. Founded in 1631, its present appearance is mostly from around 1920. It is today mostly used for

conferences A conference is a meeting, often lasting a few days, which is organized on a particular subject, or to bring together people who have a common interest. Conferences can be used as a form of group decision-making, although discussion, not always d ...

and as a hotel. In the 1950s, ancient remains were found on the island of Helgö. The excavations that followed unveiled eight groups of buildings and objects from Ireland, Egypt, and India dating back to the eighth century offering a hint of the extent of the trade of the era. The settlement is, however, believed to be considerably older and have reached its peak around 500-600 CE. On Helgö is also the Kaggeholm Palace, with a history stretching back to 1370. The palace was built in the 1720s.Kaggeholm folkhögskola The Barrow of Björn Ironside on Munsö Island is part of the

Iron Age The Iron Age () is the final epoch of the three historical Metal Ages, after the Chalcolithic and Bronze Age. It has also been considered as the final age of the three-age division starting with prehistory (before recorded history) and progre ...

grave field Munsö-Husby. On Munsö is also Munsö Church; one of three

round church A round church is a church with a completely circular plan, thus a rotunda in architectural terms. There are many Nordic round churches in Sweden and Denmark (notably the island of Bornholm); round churches were popular in Scandinavia in the ...

es in the Stockholm area. Probably built in 1187, it contains several medieval wooden sculptures.

Nature

There are several outdoor activities that can be enjoyed, such as fishing and bicycling, as the nature is always nearby. Each of the islands also offers distinctive experiences and sights.

Demographics

Population development

2022 by district

This is a demographic table based on Ekerö Municipality's electoral districts in the

2022 Swedish general election General elections were held in Sweden on 11 September 2022 to elect the 349 members of the Riksdag who in turn elected the Prime Minister of Sweden. Under the constitution, regional and municipal elections were also held on the same day. The pr ...

sourced from SVT's election platform, in turn taken from SCB official statistics. In total there were 29,062 residents, including 20,320 Swedish citizens of voting age. 42.0% voted for the left coalition and 56.9% for the right coalition. Indicators are in percentage points except population totals and income.

Income and Education

The population in Ekerö Municipality has the seventh highest median income per capita in Sweden, although the share of highly educated persons, according to

Statistics Sweden Statistics Sweden ( ; SCB, ) is the Swedish government agency operating under the Ministry of Finance and responsible for producing official statistics for decision-making, debate and research. The agency's responsibilities include: * developin ...

's definition: persons with post-secondary education that is three years or longer, is 31.3% and slightly over the national average, 27.0%.

Residents with a foreign background

On 31 December 2017 the number of people with a foreign background (persons born outside of Sweden or with two parents born outside of Sweden) was 5 825, or 20.99% of the population (27 753 on 31 December 2017). On 31 December 2002 the number of residents with a foreign background was (per the same definition) 2 358, or 10.28% of the population (22 936 on 31 December 2002). On 31 December 2017 there were 27 753 residents in Ekerö, of which 3 345 people (12.05%) were born in a country other than Sweden. Divided by country in the table below - the Nordic countries as well as the 12 most common countries of birth outside of Sweden for Swedish residents have been included, with other countries of birth bundled together by continent by

.Statistiska centralbyrån: Utrikes födda efter län, kommun och födelseland 31 december 2017
(XLS-fil) Läst 4 januari 2019

Politics

The Ekerö's politics has traditionally been dominated by the centre-right Moderate Party since 1979. The voter turnout is usually high and among the highest in the country.

National Election,
Riksdag The Riksdag ( , ; also or , ) is the parliament and the parliamentary sovereignty, supreme decision-making body of the Kingdom of Sweden. Since 1971, the Riksdag has been a unicameral parliament with 349 members (), elected proportional rep ...

Source: These are the election results from the

1973 Events January * January 1 – The United Kingdom, the Republic of Ireland and Denmark 1973 enlargement of the European Communities, enter the European Economic Community, which later becomes the European Union. * January 14 - The 16-0 19 ...

onwards in Ekerö Municipality. In the SCB reports from 1988 to 1994 the exact decimals of the

Sweden Democrats The Sweden Democrats ( , SD ) is a Nationalism, nationalist and Right-wing populism, right-wing populist political party in Sweden founded in 1988. As of 2024, it is the largest member of Sweden's Right-wing politics, right-wing bloc and the sec ...

were not reported since only parties near the 4% nationwide threshold were reported on. 1985, the Christian Democrats (KD) and Centre Party (C) were allied as "The Centre" so their shared votes are reported as those of C in that election.

Transport

Public transport

Ekerö is served by the Stockholm public transport system through SL. All bus routes have connection with the Stockholm metro at Brommaplan. More recently a ferryhttps://sl.se/sv/info/resa/pendelbatar/ - SL ferry information, in Swedish has started running regularly between Ekerö and

Stockholm Stockholm (; ) is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in Sweden by population, most populous city of Sweden, as well as the List of urban areas in the Nordic countries, largest urban area in the Nordic countries. Approximately ...

city.

Roads

The county road 261 offers connection to motorists from Brommaplan and other western suburbs of Stockholm. There is only one bridge, Nockebybron, connecting the municipality with the mainland, but there is also a car

ferry A ferry is a boat or ship that transports passengers, and occasionally vehicles and cargo, across a body of water. A small passenger ferry with multiple stops, like those in Venice, Italy, is sometimes referred to as a water taxi or water bus ...

taking motorists to

Botkyrka Municipality Botkyrka Municipality ( ) is a municipality in Stockholm County in east central Sweden, not far from the capital Stockholm. Its seat is located in the town of Tumba. In 1971 ''Grödinge'' was merged with Botkyrka and in 1974 ''Salem'' was added ...

south-west of Stockholm.

Sister towns

Ekerö is twinned with the following municipality: * Otepää,

Estonia Estonia, officially the Republic of Estonia, is a country in Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland across from Finland, to the west by the Baltic Sea across from Sweden, to the south by Latvia, and to the east by Ru ...

Localities

* Bergvik * Björndal *Brygga * Ekerö * Drottningholm *Jungfrusund * Kaggens täppa *Kungsberga *Lurudden * Mälby *Parksidan * Slottshagen *Sluts brygga *Solsidan *Stav * Stenhamra * Sundby *Svartsjö * Sånga-Sundby *Tureholm *Väsby *Älvnäs *Ölsta

Notes

References

* * * * * *

External links

Ekerö Municipality
- Official site {{DEFAULTSORT:Ekero Municipality Municipalities of Stockholm County Uppland Populated places in Stockholm County