South Jutland County were included in its jurisdiction, whereas Spandet, Roager and Hviding (German from 1864-1920) were included in the neighbouring 1970-2006 county of Ribe. The coat of arms of South Jutland County was designed in 1980 and is derived from the historic coat of arms of Schleswig which in turn is derived from the national coat of arms of Denmark. The inspiration for the Dannebrog pennant was a 13th-century seal used by Erik Abelsøn, Duke of Schleswig. South Jutland County South Jutland County (Danish: "Sønderjyllands Amt") is a former county (Danish: "amt") on the south-central portion of the Jutland Peninsula in southern
Counties of Denmark 1948; from 1816 to 1948 the islands had the status of a Danish county. A government proposal in 2004 called for the counties to be abolished and replaced by five large regions with health care as their main responsibilities: two regions in Jutland, two regions in Zealand and one region covering Funen and the southernmost part of Jutland. The proposal also required the municipalities to merge reducing them from 271 to 98, with a minimum of 20,000 inhabitants in each municipality, although some exceptions were made to this rule. From 2007 25 municipalities have fewer than 30,000 inhabitants each, with