Region Gotland

On 31 December 1951 there were 93 local government units on the island of Gotland, among them one city (Visby), one market town (Slite), one county council and a lot of rural municipalities, many of them with fewer than 100 inhabitants.

Twenty years later the situation was totally different.

The first of the two nationwide local government reforms in Sweden during the 20th century was implemented on 1 January 1952. From that date on, the rural municipalities on the island were regrouped into twelve new enlarged municipalities, which together with Visby, Slite and the Gotland County Council formed the new administrative pattern.

After ten years it was clear that this reform had not been radical enough and the work began preparing for the next one.

On 1 January 1971 the second and last local government reform was implemented in Sweden. All administrative and judicial differences between rural and urban areas were abolished. Only one type of municipality (kommun) existed from that date on. In the case of Gotland all the former entities were united into one single unit. As there was only one municipality in the county, also the County Council was abolished and merged into the new unitary municipality.

As the municipality is the only one in Sweden with both local and regional functions, normally provided separately by the Municipalities and Regional councils respectively, Gotland has a special status as a municipality and has officially been named Region Gotland as of 2011.^[3]

There are 16 urban areas (also called a Tätort or locality) in Gotland Municipality.

In the table the localities are listed according to the size of the population. The municipal seat is in bold characters.

This is a demographic table based on Gotland Municipality's electoral districts in the 2022 Swedish general election sourced from SVT's election platform, in turn taken from SCB official statistics.^[8]

In total there were 60,941 residents, including 48,274 Swedish citizens of voting age.^[8] 59.2 % voted for the left coalition and 39.3 % for the right coalition. Indicators are in percentage points except population totals and income.

When Gotland was made into a single municipality in the 1970s, the county council was abolished and its responsibilities transferred to the municipality, making it a unitary authority. During a trial period some of the authority normally held by the Gotland County Administrative Board, an agency of the national government, has also been devolved to the Gotland Municipality, as well as to two mainland councils. The municipality of Gotland is therefore in this respect also a region. It has responsibility for the public healthcare system and public transport.

The municipality coordinates the annual Almedalen Week (Almedalsveckan), an important meetingplace for everyone involved in Swedish politics. During the week, representatives from the political parties in the Riksdag take turns to hold speeches in the Almedalen park in Visby.

• Politics of Sweden
• Elections in Sweden
• List of Gotland Governors