Regions of Denmark

The Regions of Denmark were created as part of the 2007 Danish Municipal Reform. The five regions replaced the former counties (amter). At the same time, the number of municipalities (kommuner) was cut from 270 to 98. The reform was made effective on 1 January 2007. Each regional council has 41 members, among whom the regional chairman is chosen.

Unlike the counties, which they replaced to a large extent, the regions are not municipalities and therefore do not have the right to display coat of arms, but they do have logotypes. They do not themselves levy any taxes, but are financed only by block grants which are coming from a tax levied by the central government and partly from taxes collected by their constituent municipalities. The taxes of the municipalities was increased by 3 percentage points from 1 January 2007. These 3 percent are for patient care, which was previously a part of the county tax. The counties were financed both through their own county tax and in addition through block grants from central government.

The archipelago of Ertholmene slightly to the northeast of Bornholm is not part of any region or municipality. Therefore, they do not pay the health care tax levied by the central government from 1 January 2007 and did not pay the tax levied by the counties prior to 2007 or any municipal taxes.

Their representative organisation was set up 23 March 2006. It is an advocacy and lobbying organisation speaking on behalf of all of the regions, including negotiating i.e. labor contracts, etc. They also maintain an office in Brussels.

The regions have the same layout as the five State Administrations (Danish: Statsforvaltninger; singular: Statsforvaltning) (See below).

The naming of the regions in English are not uniform. The government often uses the Danish names or directly translated English names (e.g. Greater Copenhagen, Zealand, North Jutland, Southern Denmark, Central Jutland). The regions themselves partially use other names in English, substituting 'Jutland' for 'Denmark', as shown below.

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