Linköping Municipality
# Linköping Municipality

Linköping Municipality (Linköpings kommun) is a municipality in Östergötland County in southern Sweden. With more than 165,000 inhabitants, it is the fifth largest municipality in Sweden.

The municipality is bordered in the west by Motala, and thence clockwise by Finspång, Norrköping, Söderköping, Åtvidaberg, Kinda, Boxholm and Mjölby municipalities.

The present municipality was formed in 1971 by the amalgamation of the City of Linköping with five surrounding rural municipalities. The number of original local government entities (as of 1863) making up Linköping Municipality is 32.

Linköping is one of the few municipalities in Sweden to style the speaker of the assembly as mayor.

Linköping wants to create a sustainable development of the city and therefore plan to become a carbon neutral community by 2025.

## Politics

### Municipal election 2018

On September 9, 2018, Linköping held Municipality Election:

| Party | Party | Votes | % | Seats | ± |
| - | - | - | - | - | - |
| | Social Democrats | 29137 | 27,57 | 22 | -5 |
| | Moderate Party | 23050 | 21,81 | 18 | -2 |
| | Sweden Democrats | 11130 | 10,53% | 8 | +2 |
| | Centre Party | 9865 | 9,33% | 8 | +2 |
| | Left Party | 6459 | 6,11 | 5 | +2 |
| | Christian Democrats | 7908 | 7,48% | 6 | +2 |
| | Liberals | 9456 | 8,95% | 7 | +1 |
| | Green Party | 6904 | 6,53% | 5 | -2 |
| | Others | 1770 | 1,67% | 0 | 0 |
| Invalid/blank votes | Invalid/blank votes | 1254 | | | |
| Total | Total | 106933 | 100 | 79 | 0 |

Following the 2014 Linköping municipal election , the seats were divided in the following way: :

| The governing parties | The governing parties | Parties in opposition | Parties in opposition |
| - | - | - | - |
| The Social Democrats | 27 | The Moderate Party | 20 |
| The Liberal People's Party | 6 | The Left Party | 3 |
| The Green Party | 7 | The Sweden Democrats | 6 |
| | | The Christian Democrats | 4 |
| | | The Centre Party | 6 |

Following the 2018 Linköping municipal election, the seats were divided in the following way: :

| The governing parties | The governing parties | Parties in opposition | Parties in opposition |
| - | - | - | - |
| The Moderate Party | 18 | The Social Democrats | 22 |
| The Liberals | 7 | The Left Party | 5 |
| The Christian Democrats | 6 | The Green Party | 5 |
| The Centre Party | 8 | The Sweden Democrats | 8 |

In the aftermath of the 2014 municipality election, The local Social Democrats (S; Social Demokraterna), Green Party (MP; Miljöpartiet) and the Liberal People's Party (L; Liberalerna, formerly FP; Folk Partiet) formed a coalition majority named "coalition for Linköping" with 40 out of 79 seats, while the minority opposition in Linköping consisted each separate by: the Moderate Party (M ; Moderaterna), Centre Party (C; Center Partiet), Christian Democrats (Kristdemokraterna), Left Party (V; Vänsterpartiet) and the Sweden Democrats (SD; Sverige Demokraterna).

After the 2018 elections, all of the Alliance parties in the municipality joined together and took over from the Socialdemocrat's coalition rule and their mandat started the 1st January 2019 and onwards.

### List of mayors

* Eva Joelsson Social Democrats (S), 1994–2006
* Ann-Cathrine Hjerdt Moderate Party (M), 2006–2014
* Helena Balthammar Social Democrats (S), 2014–2018
* Lars Vikinge Centre Party (C), 2018–present

## Twin towns – sister cities

Linköping is twinned with:

* Ísafjarðarbær, Iceland
* Joensuu, Finland
* Kaunas, Lithuania
* Linz, Austria
* Macau, China
* Palo Alto, United States
* Tønsberg, Norway

Roskilde Municipality in Denmark chose in the summer of 2007 to cancel its sistership agreements with four Scandinavian local government entities, including Linköping Municipality. Twinning with Guangzhou in China terminated in February 2020.

