Höganäs
Main town of Höganäs municipality
The coastal town Höganäs is the main town and with its 14,000 inhabitants the largest town of the municipality Höganäs on the Kullen peninsula in the northwest of the southern Swedish province of Skåne.
Certainly many people will connect the city name Höganäs with the famous Höganäs-ceramic wich is coming from here. But very few will know that Höganäs is a former mining town, where coal was extracted since the 17th century.
Höganäs is a fine example of the development of a fishing and farming village to a mining town and today's modern industrial city with flourishing enterprises.
Destinations & attractions in Höganäs
History of Höganäs
Höganäs, originally called Höjeness is first mentioned in sources from the 15th century. At that time there were two small fishing villages that slowly grew together to a city whose main occupation was fishing. At the end of the 17th century the coal mining started, from 1797 onwards began the industrial coal production and the first mining settlements emerged.
A railway with wooden rails for transporting coal between mines and the port of Höganäs was built in 1798. A few years later the wooden rails were replaced by iron rails, so to speak, Sweden's first railway line. The last coal mine shaft Prince Gustaf Adolf, was shut down in 1961.
From the start of coal production, large amounts of clay was found and when the sales of coal went down, the mine company decided to focus more on clay products. A brick factory was operated from the 1820s and the production of consumer goods from ceramic began in 1830. The production of the well known, brown pitchers followed in 1835.
Despite everything, the town Höganäs received the full civic rights quite late in 1936. Today's town hall was even built in 1960.