From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Trelleborg is the southernmost city in Sweden and the seat of Trelleborg Municipality in Skåne County. It has a population of 25,643 (2005).

The first written mention of Trelleborg, in the scarce Swedish medieval sources, is from 1257, when Trelleborg and the adjacent city Malmö were presented as a wedding gift from the Danish royal family to the Swedish Prince Valdemar. It was soon reconquered by the Danes, and it belonged to Denmark until 1658, when Scania was lost to Sweden by the Treaty of Roskilde.

In the medieval times, Trelleborg had an important part in the herring fishing. At that time, this was conducted along the entire coastal line of Sweden, as the herring shoals where of such great numbers that it has been reporter how fishermen could stand at the shore and land in fish with nets. Trelleborg became an important merchant city as merchants from Germany came to trade herring. In April 1619, the Danish King decided that one merchant city on the coastal line was sufficient and revoked Trelleborg's status as a merchant city to favour Malmö.

The old water tower in Trelleborg

Not until 1840 was Trelleborg allowed to become a merchant city, and not until 1867 it regained its rights as a city of Sweden. Mostly this was thanks to the work of a few stubborn men, who had continuously been bothering the Swedish Riksdag with these requests ever since 1658.

In the end of the 19th century, Trelleborg became an industrial town and the foundation of modern Trelleborg has largely been created by a few large companies; most notably Trelleborg Industries and the ferry company and business related to the seaport. Much of it has been the work of the influential businessman Johan Kock. Other important industries he established were Akzo Nobel Inks, manufacturing printing inks (established as Gleitzman Industries in the 1890's), and DUX, who make beds. Later in the 1950s, Perstorp (Flooring) Industries was established in Trelleborg and it manufactures a type of flooring boards and other plastic material. Trelleborg continues to be a working-class oriented city and is politically a traditional stronghold for the Swedish Social Democratic Party.

TT-Line ferry routes

It is today often visited by people travelling from Sweden to Germany because of the ferries trafficking Rostock, Sassnitz and Lübeck - Travemünde in Germany. These ferries began touring on May 1, 1897 with the Sassnitz line; the route to Travemünde was established in 1962, while the line to the former East German city Rostock was inaugurated after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. The ferries carry both passengers on one-day journeys, cars with vacationing families, and heavy trucks on their way through Europe. In April 1917, Lenin arrived with the ferry from Sassnitz to Trelleborg on his way from exile back to Russia to lead the Revolution.

A Viking ring castle in Trelleborg, Skåne

Today Trelleborg has the second largest seaport of Sweden, trailing Gothenburg. Every year it transports more than 10 million metric tons of cargo.

Overlooking the harbor of Smygehuk near Trelleborg is a statue of a nude woman that was installed in 1930. Uma Thurman's grandmother, the mother of Nena von Schlebrügge, had stood model for this statue.^[1]

1. ^ Uma Thurmans mormor staty i Trelleborg, Sydsvenskan, 30 July 2006. (Swedish)

Trelleborg is one of 134 towns with the historical City status in Sweden.

Coordinates: 55°22′N, 13°10′E