Trelleborg, city (1990 pop. 22,850), Malmöhus co., extreme S Sweden, a port on the Baltic Sea. Manufactures include machinery, rubber, cement, and refined sugar. It is an important crossing point to continental Europe, with ferry connections to Germany. Trelleborg was founded in the Middle Ages and owed its early prosperity to abundant herring catches in the Baltic. Its modern growth dates from the late 19th cent. The name is sometimes spelled Trälleborg.

Trelleborg is the southernmost city in Sweden and the seat of Trelleborg Municipality in Skåne County. It has a population of 25,643 (2005) out of a municipal total of 40,000.

History

The earliest written record of Trelleborg is from 1257, when Trelleborg and the adjacent city of 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 medieval times, Trelleborg had an important part in herring fishing. At that time, this was conducted along the entire coast line of what is now Sweden, as the herring shoals were of such great numbers that fishermen were said to have been able to stand on the shore and land fish with nets. Trelleborg became an important merchant city as merchants from Germany came to trade herring. In 1619 following a devastating fire, the Danish King decided that one merchant city on the coast was sufficient and revoked Trelleborg's status as a merchant city in order to favour Malmö.

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 petitioning the Swedish Riksdag with these requests since 1658. The local government reform of 1971 made Trelleborg the seat of Trelleborg Municipality, covering both rural and urban areas.

The name

The first written record of the name is from 1291, Threlæburgh. The name is found in many places in Scandinavia. Borg means castle or stronghold and träl can be thrall, but can also refer to the leaning poles on the outside of the mideval viking stronghold. Remains of the original stronghold were excavated in 1988.

Today

At 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 1890s), and DUX, who make beds. Later in the 1950s, Perstorp (Flooring) Industries was established in Trelleborg and it manufactures 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.

It is today often visited by people travelling from Sweden to Germany because of the ferries to Rostock, Sassnitz and Lübeck - Travemünde in Germany. These ferries began sailing 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.

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

Overlooking the harbour 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, was the model for this statue.

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