Socken

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Socken (Swedish: [ˈsʊ̌kːɛn] or [ˈsɔ̌kːɛn])^[1] is the name used for a part of a county in Sweden. In Denmark similar areas are known as sogn, in Norway sokn or sogn and in Finland pitäjä (socken). A socken is an rural area formed around a church, typically in the Middle Ages. A socken originally served as a parish. Later it also served as a civil parish or an administrative parish, and became a predecessor to today's municipalities of Sweden, Finland, Norway and Denmark. Today it is a traditional area with frozen borders, in Sweden typically identical to those of the early 20th century rural parishes. The socken also served as a registration unit for buildings, in Sweden recently replaced by identical districts as registration unit. A socken consists of several villages and industry localities (company towns), and is typically named after the main village and the original church.

Socken, in old Swedish sokn (compare: Danish and bokmål sogn, nynorsk sokn) is an archaic name for the original country church parishes, kyrksocken. It also describes a secular area, a sockenkommun ("rural area locality") or a taxation area, a jordbokssocken.^[2][3] In the Nordic countries a socken was an administrative area consisting of several villages or localities in much the same way as the civil parishes in England, but the concept is not used in reference to towns. A socken had a socken church, it was governed by a socken council and it was the predecessor to modern municipalities^[4][5]

In 1862, the kyrksockens ("church socken") and the sockenkommuns ("rural area locality") in Sweden were abolished as administrative areas during municipality reforms. The jordbrukssocken ("taxation area") remained in use until the Fastighetsdatareformen ("Reform for registration of real property") 1976–1995 was complete.^[6] No further alterations to the sockens was made after this.

On 1 January 2016, a new administrative division and area for statistics, registration districts or simply districts, was introduced in Sweden. Geographically, the districts correspond with the parishes of the Church of Sweden as of 31 December 1999. About 85% of the old sockens corresponds with the new districts.^[7][8][9]

Even though the term socken is no longer used administratively in Sweden, it is still used for cataloging and registering historical archives (Swedish National Heritage Board), botany, dialect research, toponymy and by local historical societies. Socken is a convenient parameter for these purposes since it does not change with time.^[10]

• List of sockens in Sweden on Swedish Wikipedia, sv:Kategori:Socknar i Sverige

• Administrative divisions of Sweden
• Civil parishes in England
• Historical region
• Hundred (county division)
• Municipalities of Sweden
• Parish (Denmark)
• Parishes of the Church of Sweden
• Soke (legal)
• Swedish municipal reforms of 1862
• Townships of the People's Republic of China

• Almquist, Johan Axel (1917–1923). Den civila lokalförvaltningen i Sverige 1523–1630: med särskild hänsyn till den kamerala indelningen. Meddelanden från svenska Riksarkivet, 99-0506720-5; 6 (in Swedish). Stockholm: Norstedt. Retrieved 16 June 2014.

• Lagerstedt, Torsten (1973). Den civila lokalförvaltningens gränser 1630–1952: kameral redovisning, areell beteckning och gränsförändring. Meddelanden från Kulturgeografiska institutionen vid Stockholms universitet, 0585-3508; B 24 (in Swedish). Stockholm. Retrieved 16 June 2014.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)

• Litzen, Veikko (1977). "Om socken". Historisk Tidskrift för Finland (in Swedish). Helsinki: 331–335.

• Svensson, Patric (1999). Peter Aronsson & Lennart Johansson (ed.). "Att skapa ordning och reda: administrativa förändringar på landsbygden omkring 1870–1940". Stationssamhällen (in Swedish). Växjö : Univ., 1999: 146–154. ISBN 9789172661493. Retrieved 16 June 2014.

• Swedish Tax Agency, Parishes in Sweden, historical–current.(in Swedish)
• Swedish National Heritage Board, List of towns and sockens. Archived 2021-11-20 at the Wayback Machine(in Swedish)

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