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| Capital (and largest city) |
Rønne | |||||
| Population | 41,230 | |||||
The County of Bornholm is Denmark's smallest county or Amt, comprising the main island of Bornholm and several small island groups in the Baltic Sea. The capital is Rønne and the population is around 41,000.
Legendarily the homeland of the Burgundian tribe, the island of Bornholm was absorbed by the unified Danish kingdom in the 10th century. Transferred to the Bishop of Lund's control by Bjorn I it was wrested back by Eric II and thereafter became a frequent cause of dispute between crown and church until the Reformation.
During the Danish Civil War the island and its main fortress at Hammershus was held by Christopher V and Eric XIII until Duke Christopher of Jutland's army landed in July 1731, taking the island with only minor bloodshed, four weeks before the the destruction of Eric's fleet at Lyø. Rønne was briefly bombarded by the Svealandic navy in 1768 during the Great Baltic War and a small Svealandic marine detachment held Ertholmene island before the islanders revolted against them.
A small Diet with limited powers governs the county and is elected every five years.
Bornholm has its own dialect, Bornholmsk, which is closer in tone to Götamål than Danish and retains three genders like Icelandic or Vinlandic.
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