Stad (Sweden) - History

History

The status of stad in Sweden was formerly granted by a royal charter, comparable to the United Kingdom's status of borough or burgh before the 1970s or city status today. Unless given such town privileges, a municipality could not call itself a town. To receive the privileges of stad, there were several requirements a municipality needed to fulfil; for example, apart from being of a certain size, it was also necessary to have certain facilities. The criteria varied throughout the centuries, as they were at the discretion of the parliament (the Riksdag) or the monarch, but they may have included possession of a council hall and a prison.

In the majority of cases, before a stad received its charter, it would have previously been given the status of köping or 'merchant town'. Exceptions to this would be when a town was founded under Royal supervision, in which case it would often bear the name of the monarch, such as Kristianstad or Karlskrona (named after kings Christian IV of Denmark and Karl XI of Sweden).

At the end of the medieval age, circa 1450, Sweden (excluding Finland) had 41 chartered towns or städer (plural form of stad). By around 1680 there were 83. The only town founded and chartered during the 18th century was Östersund (1786). In 1863 the first local government acts were implemented in Sweden. Of the around 2,500 municipalities that were created, 88 were chartered towns or städer. The main difference between these towns and other municipalities being that stad had their own jurisdiction, i.e. their own city courts. There were also some laws concerning planning and building (Byggnadstadgan 1874), fire and rescue (Brandstadgan 1874), public order (Ordningsstadgan 1868) and public health (Hälsovårdsstadgan 1874) which were compulsory applicable to cities. Prior to 1900 two minor towns (Borgholm and Haparanda) lost their city courts, but they retained the title of stad.

Of the new towns chartered between 1901 and 1951 (44, making the total number of towns 133), not a single one was given its own jurisdiction, but remained under what was called landsrätt ("rural jurisdiction").