(Swedish: Hälsingborg; Danish: Helsingborg)

The town of Hälsingborg in Sweden is the country's ninth largest municipality and eigth largest town, with 118,000 inhabitants, and 85,000 of them living in the town itself. It was just a small town until the middle of the 19th Century when railways and a new harbour brought a strong expansion. The 1900 population was 24,670. In 1921 it was the first town in Sweden to own a municipal theatre.

The town is located at the narrowest part of the Sound(Öresund/Øresund), and the distance across the water to Helsingør in Denmark is no more than 4 km. The town is a trading center, being the second largest harbour in Sweden and having European highways E4 & E6 intersect just outside of town.

There are more than 50 compulsory schools in Hälsingborg, including the International School of Hälsingborg, where education is done in English. Many local schools have unique profiles, and some schools have chosen to place extra time into cultural and environmental studies.

The town has a growing IT industry, with the head offices of some of Sweden's best known computer companies, like ReadSoft and Mactive being there, as well as Ikea's internation IT-center. The town was heavily influenced by production industry, but that role has been taken over by companies focusing on logistics, chemicals, medicine, and food production. Well known Hälsingborg companies include Scandlines, Kemira Kemi, Pharmacia, Ikea, and van den Bergh Food/Unilever.

The best known tourist spot in Hälsingborg is the Sofiero castle, which was built by Crown Prince Oscar and his wife Sofia in 1885. It was the Royal summer residence until King Gustav VI Adolf died in 1973 and the castle was inherited by the town and restored. There is also an even older attraction, Kärnan. It is a 35 m tall tower, built in the centre of the town in the 1400's to protect the town. Despite its 1.5 m thick walls, it was destroyed in 1894 but later rebuilt. The walls that used to surround it are no longer there. Another tourist attraction is Fredriksdal's freeland museum (Fredriksdals friluftsmuseum), run in an 18th century mansion, known for its botanical gardens. The town also contains Hälsingborg's Concert Hall from 1932, home to Hälsingborg's Symphony Orchestra (HSO), and capable of seating more than 900 people.


information from www.helsingborg.se, lots of errors/omissions pointed out and edited by liveforever

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