Facts about Sweden
Capital Stockholm · Europe
10 topics · about 20 minutes
Sweden is the largest of the Nordic countries and stretches far enough north that its top third lies inside the Arctic Circle. It avoided both world wars, built one of the most comprehensive welfare states in the world, and exports culture and design well out of proportion to a population of about 10.6 million.
Sweden runs about 1,570 kilometers from the Baltic south to the Arctic north and is administered as 21 counties. In practice it reads as three parts: Götaland in the south, with the best farmland and the oldest towns; Svealand in the middle, holding Stockholm and the great lakes; and Norrland, the northern two thirds of the country, which is forest, mountain and mining territory carrying barely a tenth of the population. Nearly 100,000 lakes fill the gaps, and some 267,000 islands lie off the coast, more than any other country has.
Stockholm spreads across 14 islands where Lake Mälaren meets the Baltic, Gothenburg on the west coast is the industrial and shipping counterweight, and Malmö in the far south sits closer to Copenhagen than to any Swedish city of size. Uppsala and Lund hold the old universities. Visitors tend to come for the Stockholm archipelago in summer, the design and food in the cities, and the far north in winter, where Abisko is among the most reliable places on Earth to see the northern lights.
- Population
- 10.6 million
- Area
- 450,295 km²
- Currency
- Swedish krona (kr)
- Official language
- Swedish
- Counties
- 21
- Highest point
- Kebnekaise, 2,096 m
The Sweden course
Geography of Sweden
Seventy percent forest, 100,000 lakes, and more islands than any other country.
History of Sweden
Vikings who went east, a Baltic empire, and no war since 1814 until NATO in 2024.
Language of Sweden
A pitch accent behind the sing-song reputation, and a reform that abolished formal address.
Culture of Sweden
Lagom, fika, the Nobel Prizes, and the third largest music export business in the world.
Economy of Sweden
Volvo and Ericsson alongside IKEA, Spotify and Klarna, in a country that has nearly dropped cash.
Politics of Sweden
A ceremonial monarchy, coalitions by default, and freedom of information law dating from 1766.
Nature & Wildlife of Sweden
The right to walk and camp on almost any land, and the densest moose population anywhere.
Food & Cuisine of Sweden
Preserving for long winters, meatballs carried worldwide by IKEA, and a herring even Swedes decline.
Landmarks of Sweden
A warship raised almost intact after 333 years, a hotel rebuilt from ice each winter, and the aurora.
People & Society of Sweden
Ten and a half million in a country the size of California, a fifth of them born abroad.
Geography of Sweden
Sweden runs roughly 1,570 kilometers from the Baltic south to the Arctic north, sharing a long mountainous border with Norway along the Scandinavian range. Forest covers close to 70 percent of the land, and the country holds nearly 100,000 lakes, of which Vänern is the largest in the European Union.
The far north, Lapland, experiences the midnight sun in summer and polar night in winter, when the sun stays below the horizon for weeks. Despite the latitude, the Gulf Stream keeps the south milder than comparable places in Canada or Russia. Some 267,000 islands lie off the coast, more than any other country, most of them in the Stockholm archipelago.
History of Sweden
Swedish Vikings turned east rather than west, trading and raiding along the rivers of what became Russia and reaching Constantinople and Baghdad. Sweden left the Kalmar Union under Gustav Vasa in 1523, a date treated as the founding of the modern state.
The 17th century brought a Swedish empire that controlled much of the Baltic, ended by defeat against Russia in the Great Northern War. Sweden has not fought a war since 1814, the longest such run of any country, and stayed neutral through both world wars. Neutrality finally ended when Sweden joined NATO in March 2024 after the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Language of Sweden
Swedish is a North Germanic language with about 10 million speakers, mutually intelligible in writing with Danish and Norwegian and closest in speech to Norwegian. It has a pitch accent, so the same sequence of sounds can mean different things depending on the melody, which is what gives spoken Swedish its sing-song reputation.
A reform in the 1960s, the du-reform, swept away elaborate formal address in favour of the informal du for everyone, a change that reflected the country’s egalitarian turn. Sweden recognizes five official minority languages, including Finnish, Sami and Meänkieli, and Swedish is also an official language of Finland.
Culture of Sweden
Lagom, roughly meaning the right amount rather than too much or too little, is the value Swedes most often name as central, and it shows up in social restraint as much as in consumption. Fika, the institutionalised coffee break, is treated as a genuine part of the working day.
Sweden is the third largest exporter of recorded music in the world after the United States and the United Kingdom, a run that began with ABBA and continued through songwriters shaping global pop from Stockholm studios. The Nobel Prizes have been awarded here since 1901 under Alfred Nobel’s will, and midsummer, celebrated around the solstice with flower crowns and dancing, outranks most public holidays.
Economy of Sweden
Sweden combines extensive welfare provision with an open, export-heavy market economy. Engineering dominates, through Volvo, Scania, Atlas Copco and Ericsson, alongside forestry, iron ore from the far north and hydroelectric power.
The country produces a striking number of globally successful firms for its size, including IKEA, H&M, Spotify and Klarna, helped by early broadband investment and a home-computer subsidy in the 1990s. Cash has nearly disappeared from daily life, with card and Swish mobile payments handling almost everything. Housing shortages in the major cities and long queues for rent-controlled apartments remain persistent problems.
Politics of Sweden
Sweden is a constitutional monarchy under King Carl XVI Gustaf, whose duties are entirely ceremonial. Succession was changed in 1980 to absolute primogeniture, making Crown Princess Victoria heir ahead of her younger brother and the first such change anywhere.
The Riksdag is a single chamber of 349 members elected proportionally with a four percent threshold, so coalition and minority government is standard. The principle of public access to official documents dates from 1766, the oldest freedom of information law in the world. Sweden joined the European Union in 1995 and has kept its own currency, the krona.
Nature & Wildlife of Sweden
Allemansrätten, the right of public access, lets anyone walk, camp and pick berries on most land regardless of who owns it, provided they disturb nothing. It is one of the defining features of the Swedish relationship with the outdoors.
The forests hold around 300,000 moose, the largest population in relation to land area anywhere, along with brown bears, lynx, wolverines and a small and politically contested wolf population. Reindeer herding across the north is a livelihood reserved to the Sami, the indigenous people of northern Scandinavia. Laponia in Lapland is a UNESCO site covering both wilderness and living Sami culture.
Food & Cuisine of Sweden
Swedish cooking developed around preserving food for long winters, giving pickled herring, cured salmon and the cured, dried and salted meats that fill a Christmas table. Köttbullar, the meatballs served with cream sauce and lingonberry jam, are the best-known dish worldwide thanks largely to IKEA.
Fredagsmys, cosy Friday, is a domestic ritual of snacks and television that Swedes take fairly seriously, and cinnamon buns have their own national day in October. Surströmming, fermented Baltic herring sold in swollen tins, has a smell strong enough that it is usually opened outdoors, and even many Swedes decline it.
Landmarks of Sweden
The warship Vasa sank in Stockholm harbour on her maiden voyage in 1628, having sailed barely 1,300 meters, and was raised almost intact in 1961. The museum built around her holds the only preserved 17th-century ship in the world and is the most visited museum in Scandinavia.
Stockholm spreads across 14 islands, with the medieval streets of Gamla Stan at its center. Further north, the Icehotel at Jukkasjärvi is rebuilt from river ice every winter, and Abisko National Park is among the most reliable places on Earth to see the northern lights. Drottningholm Palace, the royal residence outside Stockholm, carries UNESCO listing.
People & Society of Sweden
Sweden has about 10.6 million residents in a country the size of California, so density is low and the north is nearly empty. Roughly 88 percent live in urban areas, concentrated in Stockholm, Gothenburg and Malmö.
Around 20 percent of residents were born abroad, one of the higher shares in Europe, following large intakes from the former Yugoslavia, Iraq, Somalia and Syria. Sweden took in more asylum seekers per capita than any other EU country in 2015 before tightening policy sharply. Swedes were also among the first to see single-person households become the most common type, now above half in the largest cities.
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