Municipalities of the Faroe Islands

The Faroe Islands are administratively divided in 29 municipalities (kommunur), with about 120 cities and villages. Until December 31, 2008, there were 34 municipalities, and until December 31, 2004, there were 48 municipalities. In the coming years the number of Faroese municipalities is expected to drop to somewhere between 7 and 15, as there is currently a rationale towards municipal amalgamation and a decentralization of public services. In 1998 it was suggested that no municipality should have fewer than 2,000 inhabitants, but whether this will be true is a political question. The Faroese government has furthermore decided not to conduct forced, top-down amalgamation, but to leave the process to the free will of the municipalities. In many small municipalities there is some resistance to the amalgamation process, and as a result two kinds of municipalities are being created: large municipalities (town-municipalities) that are eager to attract smaller municipalities into amalgamation, and small municipalities which are either trying to avoid amalgamation or seek to amalgamate with other small municipalities. The geographically large Sunda municipality is an example of this. The larger municipalities are organized in Kommunusamskipan Føroya (KFS) and the smaller are organized in Føroya Kommunufelag (FKF).