Lund

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Lund Cathedral
Lund
City arms
Image:Lund City Arms.gif
55° 42´ N 13° 12´ E
Charter City (990)
Municipality Lund Municipality
County Skåne County
Province Skåne
Population 74,000

[lʊnː] is a Scanian city in the Skåne province of southernmost Sweden. The city is held to have be founded around 990, when the Scanian lands belonged to Denmark. It soon became the Christian center with an archbishop and with the towering Lund Cathedral (right), built in 1103.

The city has today around 74,000 inhabitants not counting all temporary students. The Lund Municipality with 101,000 inhabitants includes several towns on the plains outside Lund.

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History

In 990, the then 1000-year old town Uppåkra is believed to have been moved to Lund's location under Danish King Sweyn I Forkbeard. The distance is only some five kilometres, but Lund is located on a hill, and on the other side of a rivulet-ford, giving the new site considerable defence advantages compared to Uppåkra, that is situated on the highest point of a rather large plain. Beside new techniques of warfare, the relocation is believed to signify the process of unification of Denmark.

The city was made see in 1060, and in 1103 made the site of the archbishop for Scandinavia. The Lund Cathedral was similarly founded in or shortly after 1103. In 1152, the Norwegian archdiocese of Nidaros was founded as a separate province of the church, independent of Lund. In 1264 Sweden also got an archbishop of its own, although nominally subordinate to the archbishop of Lund.

The Cathedral School
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The Cathedral School

Lund Cathedral School (Katedralskolan) was founded in 1085 by the Danish king Canute the Saint. This is the oldest school in Scandinavia and one of the oldest in Northern Europe. The school is also one of the most prestigeous schools in Sweden, and many well-known people have attended it, among those actor Max von Sydow and several high ranking politicians.

In 1658, all Scanian counties were ceded by Denmark to Sweden by the Treaty of Roskilde. On December 4 in 1676 it was defended at the Battle of Lund, one of the bloodiest battles fought in Scandinavia. Lund University, established in 1666 as a means of Swedification, is Sweden's largest with 41,000 students, though not all students actually live in Lund.

Geography

As an unavoidable consequence of Lund being located on a hill, the city has a considerable difference in altitude — to particular disadvantage for the many, students and others, who use bikes as their main means of transportation. The difference in altitude is about 80 meters from the lowest point in the south to the highest point in the north.

Industry

Lund is home to the Tetra Pak company that markets paper packaging machinery for milk and orange juice all over the world. Sony Ericsson develops cell phone handsets in Lund. Other important industries include pharmaceuticals, electronics, and publishing and library services.

Education

Notable natives

External links

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Other uses


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

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