Gävle Municipality

Gävle Municipality (Gävle kommun) is a municipality in east central Sweden where the City Gävle is the municipal seat.

Geographically the municipality is situated north of the mouth of the river Dalälven and is the southernmost municipality of the historical land of Norrland.

The present municipality was created in 1971, when the City of Gävle was amalgamated with four surrounding rural municipalities. All of them were original entities, instituted as municipalities by the local government acts of 1862. The area had not been affected by the national subdivision reform in 1952.

Geography

Gävle is situated by the Baltic Sea near the mouth of the river Dalälven. At 60 degrees north and 17 degrees east, Gävle has the same latitude as Helsinki and the same longitude as Vienna and Cape Town.

Gävle has a similar climate to the rest of central Sweden with an average temperature of −5 °C (23 °F) in January and 17 °C (63 °F) in July. Yearly rainfall is around 600 mm (24 in).

Politics

The municipal assembly (kommunfullmäktige) has 65 members, elected for a four-year period. The last election was held in September 2014. Eight parties are represented in the assembly. The largest party is the Swedish Social Democratic Party which has 25 seats. The current chairman of the municipal executive committee (kommunstyrelsen) is the social democrat Carina Blank.

Gävle

Gävle [ˈjɛːvlə] is a city in Sweden, the seat of Gävle Municipality and the capital of Gävleborg County. It had 71,033 inhabitants in December 2010, which makes it the 13th most populated city in Sweden. It is the oldest city in the historical Norrland (Sweden's Northern Lands), having received its charter in 1446 from Christopher of Bavaria.

In recent years, the city has received a lot of international attention due to its large Yule Goat figure made of straw - the Gävle Goat. The goat is erected in December each year and is subsequently, more often than not, subject to vandalisation by someone setting it on fire. The goat has now become a symbol for the city and is being used for various marketing purposes.

History

It is believed that the name Gävle derives from the word gavel, meaning river banks in Old Swedish and referring to the Gavleån (Gävle River). The oldest settlement was called Gävle-ägarna, which means "Gavel-owners". This name was shortened to Gävle, then Gefle, and finally Gävle.