University of Southern Denmark the southern part of Denmark: campus Odense on the island of Funen, campus Slagelse and campus Copenhagen on the island of Zealand, as well as campus Kolding, campus Esbjerg and campus Sønderborg (campus named Alsion) on the Jutland peninsula. The physical buildings of SDU cover an area of 272,554 m (2007), a figure that has increased from 181,450 m in 1999 when the university merger was effectuated. The university's campus in Odense is considered the main campus of the University of Southern Denmark, both because of its relative size and because the central administration of the university is situated there.
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