Karlstad Municipality

Karlstad Municipality (Karlstads kommun) is a municipality in Värmland County in west central Sweden. Its seat is located in the city of Karlstad.

The present municipality was established in 1971 when the former City of Karlstad was amalgamated with a number of surrounding rural municipalities.

Localities

 * Alster
 * Blombacka
 * Karlstad (seat)
 * Killstad
 * Molkom
 * Skattkärr
 * Skåre
 * Slängserud
 * Vallargärdet
 * Väse

Politics
Municipalities are responsible for government-mandated duties, and elections for the Municipal council are held every four years, parallel to the general elections.

Until the 2010s inhabitants of Karlstad had a tendency to vote close to the national results at the general elections, making it the generally accepted bellwether town of Sweden. In 2022 this had decisively changed, with the winning right coalition performing seven points better overall than it did in Karlstad, with the bellwether municipalities instead being previous Social Democarts-dominated post-industrial towns in Bergslagen a bit northeast of Karlstad.

Demographics
This is a demographic table based on Karlstad Municipality's electoral districts in the 2022 Swedish general election sourced from SVT's election platform, in turn taken from SCB official statistics.

In total there were 95,290 residents, including 74,827 Swedish citizens of voting age. 52.5% voted for the left coalition and 46.4% for the right coalition. Indicators are in percentage points except population totals and income.

Riksdag
These are the local results of the Riksdag elections since the 1972 municipality reform. The results of the Sweden Democrats were not published by SCB between 1988 and 1998 at a municipal level to the party's small nationwide size at the time. "Votes" denotes valid votes, whereas "Turnout" denotes also blank and invalid votes.

Blocs

This lists the relative strength of the socialist and centre-right blocs since 1973, but parties not elected to the Riksdag are inserted as "other", including the Sweden Democrats results from 1988 to 2006, but also the Christian Democrats pre-1991 and the Greens in 1982, 1985 and 1991. The sources are identical to the table above. The coalition or government mandate marked in bold formed the government after the election. New Democracy got elected in 1991 but are still listed as "other" due to the short lifespan of the party. "Elected" is the total number of percentage points from the municipality that went to parties who were elected to the Riksdag.

Notable natives

 * Bengt Alsterlind, TV host ("Hajk")
 * Zarah Leander, singer
 * Sven-Erik Magnusson, singer/dance band artist (Sven-Ingvars)
 * Christer Sjögren, rock/dansband singer (Vikingarna)
 * Ulf Sterner, ice hockey player (first Swede to play in the National Hockey League)
 * Fabian Zetterlund, ice hockey forward for the San Jose Sharks
 * Elgen Helge, local hero (Most handsome moose around)

Sites of interest

 * Alsters herrgård, the manor house where Gustaf Fröding was born
 * Karlstad Church, built in 1730
 * An indoor ice rink and event arena, Löfbergs Arena, expanded in 2002 to host the Ice Hockey World Championships
 * Botanical gardens
 * The masonic lodge where the negotiations for the dissolution of the union between Sweden and Norway were held in 1905
 * A runestone Vr 2, one of four known in Värmland
 * A history museum
 * A nature museum

Twin towns – sister cities
The municipality is twinned with:


 * 🇮🇸 Blönduós, Iceland
 * 🇹🇷 Gaziantep, Turkey
 * Horsens, Denmark
 * 🇪🇪 Jõgeva, Estonia


 * 🇳🇴 Moss, Norway
 * 🇫🇮 Nokia, Finland