Counties and municipalities, v2:2003

Before 1970, Denmark was divided into approx. 1300 parish municipalities, 86 market town municipalities and 25 counties. The Danish Municipal Reform in 1970 resulted by law in a new local and regional structure for the whole country with two administrative levels - municipalities and counties - and thereby a change of administrative units.

With the Danish Municipal Reform in 1970, the number of counties was reduced to 14 and municipalities to 277. Copenhagen Municipality (code 101) and Frederiksberg Municipality (code 147) were the only ones assigned both county and municipal tasks. After the amalgamation of the Bornholm municipalities in 2003, Bornholm's Regional Municipality (code 400) held the same special status as Copenhagen and Frederiksberg.

From 1 April 1974, Sengeløse Municipality was incorporated into Høje-Taastrup Municipality (code 169) and Store Magleby Municipality was incorporated into Dragør Municipality (code 155), which reduced the total number of municipalities to 275.

From 1 January 2003, Bornholm's Regional Municipality (code 400) was established by merging Allinge-Gudhjem (code 401), Hasle (code 403), Nexø (code 405), Rønne (code 407) and Aakirkeby (code 409) Municipalities and Bornholm County. The merger reduced the total number of municipalities in Denmark to 271.

This classification includes Christiansø (code 411). Christiansø is not part of a municipality. Instead it is administered directly by the state through the Danish Ministry of Defence.

The geographical breakdown of counties and municipalities is consistent with the Nomenclature of territorial units for statistics (NUTS).