The Oresund Region is by no means a new construction. The Oresund was always the life’s blood of the region. Until 1658, the entire Oresund Region, including Scania, was part of Denmark. That year, Denmark ceded Scania and other land to Sweden.

Öresund (Swedish spelling) or Øresund (Danish spelling), or sometimes the Sound in English, is the strait that separates Zealand from Scania and thereby Denmark from Sweden.
Oresund, connecting the Baltic Sea to the Atlantic Ocean via the bay of Kattegat, is one of the busiest waterways in the world.

Political control of Oresund has been an important issue in Danish (and Swedish) history. Danish maintained military control with the coastal fortress of Kronborg at Elsinore (Danish: Helsingør) in Denmark and Kärnan at Helsingborg in Sweden at the “bottleneck” of Oresund. There the strait is just 4.5km wide.

King Eric of Pomerania introduced the Oresund Toll in 1429. All ships passing Elsinore had to pay duty to the Danish Crown (whether the cargo was going to or from a Danish port, or not). For centuries, the Oresund Toll was the most important source of revenue for the Crown, furnishing the kings with relative independence of Denmark's Privy Council and landholding aristocracy.

In 1658, King Karl Gustav X of Sweden marched with his army on Copenhagen. The Swedish army won the battle and the Danish territories east of the Oresund. The toll could no longer be enforced as before but still wasn't abolished until 1857.

On July 1, 2000, King Carl Gustav XVI of Sweden and Queen Margrethe II of Denmark inaugurated the first bridge across the Sound, reuniting the two countries by land link for the first time since the Ice Age, 7,000 years ago.

For over 300 years, the region has been divided between the two nations. Two nationalities and differences evolving over the centuries give the region two distinct profiles. Still, the two peoples probably have more in common that they have yet to realize.