Today
Most of the urban areas of Sweden which once were chartered towns are today still usually referred to as stad. The majority of them are also seats of their respective municipalities. The difference is that stad nowadays colloquially is more of a geographical term, rather than an administrative one. In some municipalities there can be more than one former town, e.g. Eskilstuna and Torshälla in the Eskilstuna Municipality, Kungälv and Marstrand in the Kungälv Municipality, or Jönköping, Huskvarna and Gränna, which all three now are part of the Jönköping Municipality. The town of Visby is the seat of the Gotland Municipality, but is no political entity of its own. Some former towns have also grown together, forming one urban area.
A few municipalities which used to be towns still prefer to style themselves as stad for marketing reasons. That applies to e.g. Stockholm, Gothenburg and Malmö. There are also municipalities with considerable rural areas that market themselves as stad, which can cause confusion to some people as the word in daily speech sometimes is used only about the urban area.
Statistics Sweden defines a stad as a locality with more than 10,000 inhabitants. There are slightly more than 100 such towns in the country.
Read more about this topic: Stad (Sweden)
Famous quotes containing the word today:
“All great art, and today all great artlessness, must appear extreme to the mass of men, as we know them today. It springs from the anguish of great souls. From the souls of men not formed, but deformed in factories whose inspiration is pelf.”
—Alexander Trocchi (1925–1983)
“Even today . . . experts, usually male, tell women how to be mothers and warn them that they should not have children if they have any intention of leaving their side in their early years. . . . Children don’t need parents’ full-time attendance or attention at any stage of their development. Many people will help take care of their needs, depending on who their parents are and how they chose to fulfill their roles.”
—Stella Chess (20th century)
“The adequate study of culture, our own and those on the opposite side of the globe, can press on to fulfillment only as we learn today from the humanities as well as from the scientists.”
—Ruth Benedict (1887–1948)