The North Jutland Region (Danish: Region Nordjylland), or in some official sources, the North Denmark Region, is an administrative region of Denmark established on 1 January 2007 as part of the 2007 Danish municipal reform, which abolished the traditional counties (amter) and set up five larger regions. At the same time, smaller municipalities were merged into larger units, cutting the number of municipalities from 271 before 1 January 2006, when Ærø Municipality was created, to 98. North Jutland Region has 11 municipalities. The reform diminished the power of the regional level dramatically in favor of the local level and the central government in Copenhagen.