Köping is a locality and the seat of
Köping MunicipalityKöping Municipality is a municipality in Västmanland County in central Sweden. Its seat is located in the city of Köping.The municipality was created in 1971, when the former City of Köping was merged with the municipalities of Kolsva, Medåker and Munktorp forming a new municipality of unitary...
in
Västmanland CountyVästmanland County is a county or län in central Sweden. It borders to the counties of Södermanland, Örebro, Gävleborg, Dalarna and Uppsala...
,
SwedenSweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....
. It had 17,358 inhabitants in 2005. It is known for the television series
I en annan del av KöpingI en annan del av Köping is a Swedish documentary television series which began broadcasting in 2007 on TV4. The series depicts the daily lives of four mentally handicapped persons in Köping, Sweden, and has been described as one of Sweden's most popular programs.The four main characters in the...
.
History
Köping means merchant place. It was mentioned for the first time in the 13th century. It probably was referred to such a name as it did not yet have a
charterA charter is the grant of authority or rights, stating that the granter formally recognizes the prerogative of the recipient to exercise the rights specified...
. The central location of Köping deems it appropriate for merchancy for people from different parts of the country.
Köping, with central and southern Sweden was Christianised in the 11th century. A church built around the year 1300, the Köping Church, still remains from the early days.
Köping got its
charterA charter is the grant of authority or rights, stating that the granter formally recognizes the prerogative of the recipient to exercise the rights specified...
on January 19, 1474.
In the 17th century Köping municipality produced large amounts of
ironIron is a chemical element with the symbol Fe and atomic number 26. It is a metal in the first transition series. It is the most common element forming the planet Earth as a whole, forming much of Earth's outer and inner core. It is the fourth most common element in the Earth's crust...
that was transported to other countries.
In the 19th century Köping established itself as an industrial city, with a large mechanical workshop and a prosperous harbor. A fire in 1889 destroyed large parts of Köping, whereafter it was rebuilt using stone material under supervision of architect Theodor Dahl.
In the 20th century all kinds of companies have established themselves in Köping.
VolvoAB Volvo is a Swedish builder of commercial vehicles, including trucks, buses and construction equipment. Volvo also supplies marine and industrial drive systems, aerospace components and financial services...
built a large industry there in the 1920's; the arguably most known bed manufacturer in Sweden,
HästensHästens is a luxury bed company founded in 1852 in Köping, Sweden. Hästens manufactures hand-made beds and mattresses with natural materials like cotton, horsehair, wool and flax, rather than foam. The company was originally a one-man horse saddle business by Pehr Adolf Janson and is still a...
, in 1924; and a number of
goldGold is a chemical element with the symbol Au and an atomic number of 79. Gold is a dense, soft, shiny, malleable and ductile metal. Pure gold has a bright yellow color and luster traditionally considered attractive, which it maintains without oxidizing in air or water. Chemically, gold is a...
groceries between 1940-1960.
Notable natives
- Carl Wilhelm Scheele
Carl Wilhelm Scheele was a German-Swedish pharmaceutical chemist. Isaac Asimov called him "hard-luck Scheele" because he made a number of chemical discoveries before others who are generally given the credit...
- 18th century Chemist who discovered the functions of oxygenOxygen is the element with atomic number 8 and represented by the symbol O. Its name derives from the Greek roots ὀξύς and -γενής , because at the time of naming, it was mistakenly thought that all acids required oxygen in their composition...
- Richard Dybeck
Richard Dybeck was a Swedish jurist, antiquarian and lyricist, mainly remembered as the author of the lyrics to what is now the Swedish national anthem: Du gamla, Du fria....
- One of the writers of the Swedish national anthemThe term anthem means either a specific form of Anglican church music , or more generally, a song of celebration, usually acting as a symbol for a distinct group of people, as in the term "national anthem" or "sports anthem".-Etymology:The word is derived from the Greek via Old English , a word...
- Henrik Sjögren
Henrik Samuel Conrad Sjögren was a Swedish ophthalmologist best known for the eponymous condition Sjögren's syndrome. Sjögren is pronounced ; the syndrome is in English. Sjögren published a doctoral thesis in 1933 titled "On knowledge of keratoconjunctivitis) that eventually served as the basis...
- Ophthalmologist best known for the eponymous condition Sjögren's syndromeSjögren's syndrome , also known as "Mikulicz disease" and "Sicca syndrome", is a systemic autoimmune disease in which immune cells attack and destroy the exocrine glands that produce tears and saliva....
- Emir Bajrami
Emir Bajrami is a Swedish footballer of Kosovo Albanian descent playing for FC Twente and the Swedish national team. He scored his first Allsvenskan goal against Örebro SK in April 2007....
- Plays in the swedish national football team.