Funen County Funen County Fyns Amt (English: Funen County) is a former county (Danish, "amt") in central Denmark, comprising the islands of Funen, Langeland, Tåsinge, Ærø, and approximately 90 other islands, of which only 25 are inhabited. The county was formed on 1 April 1970, comprising the former counties of Odense and Svendborg. The county was abolished from 1 January 2007, when it merged into Region Syddanmark (i.e. "Region South Denmark"). The county employed around 20,000 people working in more than 160 institutions located all over Funen. Funen County's coat of arms showed three connected gold hop leaves on a field of
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