Sylt (; ; Söl'ring North Frisian: ) is a municipality on the island of Sylt in the district of Nordfriesland, in Schleswig-Holstein, Germany. It has around 13,000 inhabitants and covers about 60% of the area of the island.
History The municipality was formed on 1 January 2009 by the merger of the former municipalities Rantum and Sylt-Ost with the town of Westerland. The debate on this move had started in 2003 when a similar merger happened on Fehmarn. However, local rivalries and desire for independence prevented progress for a time. It took the foundation of a citizens' movement Bürger für Sylt als Einheit to advance the plan. In separate referendums in 2008, Westerland (by a large majority) and Sylt-Ost (narrowly) agreed to the merger in May 2008. Rantum followed, but List, Kampen, Wenningstedt-Braderup and Hörnum remained aloof. In September 2008 the merger contract was signed.
Although Westerland used to have the status of Stadt (town), the new municipality so far refrained from applying for this status. One reason is that the Ortsteile do not want to advertise their tourism services as simple suburbs (Stadtteile).
Geography Subdivision The municipality consists of the following Ortsteile (towns):
Archsum* Keitum* Morsum* Munkmarsch* Rantum Tinnum* Westerland
(* Former constituent part of Sylt-Ost.)
Government Sylt shares its administration in a Verwaltungsgemeinschaft with the Amt Landschaft Sylt, located in the townhall of Westerland – the former Kurhaus, built in 1897.
Municipal council The Gemeindevertretung Sylt (Sylt Municipal Council) has 33 members. Since the election of 14 May 2023 the distribution has been as follows: CDU: 12 seats The Greens: 4 seats SPD: 4 seats FDP: 1 seat SSW: 4 seats Insel-Liste zukunft.sylt: 1 seat Die Insulaner: 3 seats Sylter Wählergemeinschaft: 4 seats
Mayor In April 2025, Tina Haltermann was elected as new mayor in the second round of voting which she won with 55.6% of the vote (against 44.4% for Markus Gieppner). She replaced Carsten Kerkamm, who was leading the municipality on an interim basis after the vote to remove Nicolas Häckel from office in september 2024.
See also
References
External links
Sylt official website