Aars or Års is a former station town in Vesthimmerland with 8,465 inhabitants (2020), located 43 km southwest of Aalborg, 44 km north of Viborg, 28 km northwest of Hobro and 27 km southeast of Løgstør. The city belongs to the North Jutland Region and is the municipal seat and the largest city in Vesthimmerland Municipality. In 1970-2006, the city was the municipal seat in Aars Municipality.
Aars belongs to Aars Parish, and Aars
Church is located in the middle of the city. It was built in granite
in the first half of the 13th century. When Aars had become a
station town and began to grow, it became necessary to expand the
church in 1921-22, where it was also whitewashed as it is now.
The city also has an evangelical charismatic free church, which
was founded in 1989.
At Søndergade 44 is
Museumscenter Aars, which was established in 1999 by merging the
cultural history Vesthimmerlands Museum from 1935 and the art
history Himmerlands Kunstmuseum from 1980. In the center there are
both permanent and changing exhibitions with the area's
archaeological finds and contemporary art. There is also a permanent
exhibition about Johannes V. Jensen, who took the initiative for the
cultural history museum already in 1920. The new buildings from 1999
were designed by architect Jens Bertelsen in collaboration with Per
Kirkeby, who is one of the many artists who have left their mark on
the city with sculptures and buildings.
The Danish Museum of
Contemporary Art stores things from the Danes' everyday lives for
the last 100 years. It was opened in May 1994 in a disused farmhouse
and now has approx. 1200 m² exhibition.
5 km southeast of the
town is the reconstructed Borremose fortress, a refuge castle and
later village from the Iron Age. In Rævemosen 4 km east of the city,
the site of the Gundestrup vessel is marked with a memorial stone.
There are two primary schools in Aars, both with full superstructures
(grades 0-9) and approximately 90 employees. Aars Skole has
approximately 575 students in 2-3 tracks and 10 special classes. Around
200 children attend the school's after-school program. The school h.
Østermarkskolen has 660 students, mostly in three tracks. A good 220
children attend the school's after-school program. The school has 83
employees.
Close to the Østermark School is the Østermarken Sports
Center, which is used by nine sports clubs and has two large halls,
vaulting room, gymnasium, wrestling room, two activity rooms, four
meeting rooms, café and foyer with table tennis table, play station and
climbing wall. The city also has a swimming pool and outdoor pool.
Aars has three day care institutions: The field wing built in 1989 and
with space for 50 kindergarten children. In 2013 expanded to an
integrated institution with 13 employees and space for 25 nursery
children and 65 kindergarten children. Mejsevej, with 17 employees, is
rated for 65 children, including some under the age of three. Bakgården
has 48 kindergarten children and 10 employees.
In 1960,
Vesthimmerlands Gymnasium opened in Aars as Denmark's first parish
municipal gymnasium. The high school later also got HF and VUC.
Vesthimmerland's Musikhus ALFA was completed in 2008 and contains, among
other things, a concert hall with a stage and space for 420 spectators
as well as teaching rooms. The Musikhuset is located next to the high
school and during the day is a teaching place for high school and high
school as well as the Culture School Vesthimmerland. The house is the
entire cultural center of Vesthimmerland. The name ALFA is composed of
the initials of the municipality's four main towns: Aalestrup, Løgstør,
Farsø and Aars.
Erhvervsskolerne Aars is Himmerland's largest
education center with over 1,000 students on vocational or high school
youth programs and 200 participants on adult or continuing education.
The schools have a school dormitory that the students can stay in if
they have more than five quarters of an hour to travel. The school house
houses more than 200 pupils, the majority of whom are students on the
construction and agricultural machinery programme.
Messecenter
Vesthimmerland has an indoor area of 9,000 m² with three exhibition
halls, meeting and conference rooms and an outdoor area of 38,000 m².
Aars Hotel, founded in 1897, has 27 rooms and 6 function rooms with
space for a total of 220 people.
Aars Teater Bio is an
association-run cinema with two halls with 104 and 32 seats and five
wheelchair spaces.
Jutlander Bank has its headquarters in Aars. It
was formed in 2014 by a merger between Sparekassen Hobro and Sparekassen
Himmerland, which was established in 1871 and also had its headquarters
in Aars.
Aars Avis has been published in the city since 1927 and
covers a large local area with a weekly circulation of more than 17,000.
The name
The name "Aars" appears on 5 May 1394 in the form
Arsoghæreth. Place name researcher Svend Aakjærs estimated that the name
originates from the Old Norse/Old Icelandic word árr or ármadr, in Old
English ar, which in Danish means the king's ombudsman or earl. Another
interpretation is that it comes from the male name Aar/Ar or Old Danish
ar (servant). The suffix is -high, while herred is an administrative
addition.
Ludvig Holberg has his protagonist Peder Paars in the
joke poem of the same name travel from Kalundborg by sea to "Aars",
which here naturally means Aarhus.
The village
Aars village in
1682 consisted of six farms and four houses with land and the nearby
Aars Mill. The total cultivated area amounted to 238.8 hectares of land,
attributed to 30.99 hectares of hard grain. The form of cultivation was
grassland farming with rows.
In 1875, there were 782 residents in
Aars parish, and the town was described as follows: "Aars with church,
rectory, school and inn with merchant, bakery and malthouse". In 1880
there was one more merchant and one manufacturer.
The station
town
In 1893, the town got a state railway station on the
Himmerlandsbanerne from Hobro/Viborg via Aalestrup to Løgstør. In 1899,
Aars became Himmerland's railway junction, when the private railway
Aars-Nibe-Svenstrup (-Aalborg) had its terminus here and in 1910 was
extended from Aars to Hvalpsund. The great railway act from 1918 opened
up the possibility that there should also be a cross-Himmerland railway
Aars-Arden-Bælum-Øster Hurup, but this railway was – like most projects
in this law – never realised.
In 1901, the town was described as
follows: "Aars, by the country road, large village with church,
presbytery, school, folk high school and agricultural school (built
1899), meeting house (built 1892), mission house (built 1897), doctor's
residence, veterinarian's residence , Savings bank for A.-Havbro S.
(established 14/12 1871...Number of accounts 684), Bank for A. and
surroundings (established 25/5 1899), Cooperative dairy, mill, brewery,
malting, machine building ( especially agricultural machinery),
carpentry, dyeing, woolen knitting, bakeries, grocery stores, craftsmen,
etc., guest house, market place (market in Feb., Apr., Sept., Oct. and
Nov.), station on the Hobro-Løgstør line and terminus for Svenstrup
-Nibe-Aars Railway, telegraph and telephone exchange and postal
forwarding (Aars Address Newspaper is published in A; by the town a
small facility)".
Aalborg-Hvalpsund Railway was closed down in
1969. Already in 1966, DSB's passenger traffic at Aars Station had
ceased. The Viborg-Løgstør freight traffic continued with a dispatch
point in Aars, but ceased in 1999. The station was demolished, the track
was taken up in 2006, and the former station site is now a shop square.
Outside the station area, the track has been preserved in all four
directions and is used by the Himmerlandsstien to Viborg and Løgstør.
The Nibe-Hvalpsund nature trail uses the track to the Nibe, but follows
Løgstørvej for the first two kilometers towards Havbro.