Socken

A socken is an rural area formed around a church, typically in the Middle Ages.

Today it is a traditional area with frozen borders, in Sweden typically identical to those of the early 20th century rural parishes.

[2][3] In the Nordic countries a socken was an administrative area consisting of several villages or localities in much the same way as the civil parishes in England, but the concept is not used in reference to towns.

The jordbrukssocken ("taxation area") remained in use until the Fastighetsdatareformen ("Reform for registration of real property") 1976–1995 was complete.

[7][8][9] Even though the term socken is no longer used administratively in Sweden, it is still used for cataloging and registering historical archives (Swedish National Heritage Board), botany, dialect research, toponymy and by local historical societies.