Malmö : Sweden
Malm [?mlm] ( listen?) is the third largest municipality in Sweden. It is located in the southernmost province of Scania (Swedish, Skne) and has a population of about 270,000.
Malm was one of the earliest and most industrialized towns of Scandinavia, but has been struggling with unemployment and the adaption to post-industrialism. Recently it has made a transition to a more cultural city, and has become Sweden’s most multi-ethnic city with 24% of the population born abroad.
Population figures
Malm urban area consists of Malm and the adjacent tiny municipality of Burlv.
The Metropolitan Malm includes all municipalities in South-Western Scania. Malm is the principal town in this metropolitan area with some 500,000 inhabitants.
MalmLund and the vastly greater Metropolitan Copenhagen in Denmark, forms the center of the Oresund Region that has a total population of 3,500,000 inhabitants. To some Danes, Malm has become the most recent suburb of Copenhagen.
History
Malm is held to have been founded in 1254, the year of Copenhagen’s first town privileges, or in the immediately following years, as the archbishop’s of Lund fortified quay or ferry berth,
Around 1290, construction on the St Petri Church began. It was the first Gothic church to be built in Sweden. Similar red brick churches can be found around the coastal regions of both Sweden and Germany (for example in Ystad, Landskrona and Rostock), and were inspired by the German sea merchants, the Hansa, who played a major part in the economical growths around the Sound. Red bricks were used instead of stone, due to its scarcity in the area, and the color comes from the bedrock and the means the bricks were fabricated.
In the ensuing century, Malm and Copenhagen would rise in economic importance, and until this day this pattern has persisted. Despite Lund (and to lesser degree Roskilde) being culturally of much greater importance, Malm and Copenhagen have been centers for industrious and economic success. The disunity between the burghers of Lund and Malm has remained a fundamental characteristic, the former relying on tradition the latter on modernity and adaption. Malm was, for instance, a leading hanseatic town during the decades of the Hansa’s dominance in the region, and leading the process of Protestant Reformation in Denmark of the 1530s. Even after the secession to Sweden, in 1658, Malm continued to hold its dominant role.
