![\"Sweden's](\"https:\/\/www.swedishfreak.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/02\/Sweden_provinces.jpg\")
<\/a>Provinces and country parts<\/h3>\n
Sweden consists of three landsdelar<\/i><\/b> or country parts, counting from south: G\u00f6taland, Svealand and Norrland. This division is an old tradition but is still used for referencing the respective areas, not only in the weather report.<\/p>\n
In a finer division you\u2019ll find 25 landskap<\/i><\/b> or provinces \u2013 this partition dates from the Viking age and is really only historical. It has no judicial importance today, but it\u2019s used in everyday language and is really the way people still think about Sweden.<\/p>\n
The map at right shows the boundaries between the landsdelar\/country parts, in the way that landskap\/provinces belonging to<\/p>\n
\u2014 G\u00f6taland<\/strong> are green,<\/p>\n \u2014 Svealand<\/strong> are yellow,<\/p>\n \u2014 Norrland<\/strong> are brown.<\/p>\n As you can see, it\u2019s not correct to say, as some people believe, that everything north of Uppsala (under the second \u201cp\u201d in Uppland) is Norrland; e.g. people in Dalarna would be very offended indeed.<\/p>\n For administrative purposes, the country is divided into 21 l\u00e4n<\/i><\/b> or counties. Many counties are more or less equivalent to a province, sometimes with the same name. Some of the counties are tightly working together, about to merge into regioner<\/i><\/b> or regions.<\/p>\n On an even finer level, the counties are divided into 290 kommuner<\/i><\/b> or municipalities.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Norrland<\/i><\/b><\/a> (\u201cthe North Land\u201d) covers almost 60% of Sweden\u2019s total area, but is inhabited by only 12% of the people. In other words, it\u2019s vast and sparsely populated. The reason for this is quite obvious: it\u2019s cold, it\u2019s dark, and it\u2019s a great distance to anything.<\/p>\n A different and more positive view is that Norrland offers huge resources of iron ore, timber and hydroelectric power, plus vast areas of undisturbed alpine nature and wildlife with 24 hour daylight. It\u2019s true that it takes a certain kind to live up there, but it\u2019s very beautiful in many places. There are great possibilities for tourists: skiing, hiking, fishing, hunting, photo safaris, and it is also a big market opportunity for mosquito repellants.<\/p>\n The natural resources give Norrland a certain economical importance, but mining, forestry and waterpower have a fixed magnitude and does not promote expansion around the plants, why most of Norrland is characterized by stagnation and depopulation (which is why other provinces doesn\u2019t want to be associated with Norrland). The exception from this is the string of small\/medium-sized towns along the Baltic coast, with a few steel works, paper mills and smaller industries.<\/p>\n (Trivia: It\u2019s commonly believed that people in Norrland are taciturn; maybe so, but I\u2019ve seen\/heard quite a few specimen that differ<\/i>. A funny thing with the dialect is that in Norrland you say “jo”<\/b> instead of “ja”<\/b>. The word “<\/i>ja” means agreeing \u201cyes\u201d, while, to the other 88% of the population, the word “jo” means opposing \u201cyes\u201d. And in Norrland, “jo”<\/b> is pronounced as \u201cchoo\u201d, but inhaling<\/span>.)<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n The name Svealand<\/i><\/b> actually means the land of the Swedes. (The Swedish name for Sweden is Sverige, “the Swedes’ kingdom”, originally referring to what now is called Svealand.) Even if the northwestern part is wooded with a subarctic climate, Svealand also has areas of agricultural importance.<\/p>\n But most of all, Svealand is an industrial area, with mechanical industries in Karlstad<\/a> (Metso paper processing machinery), Karlskoga (Bofors ordnance), S\u00f6dert\u00e4lje (Scania trucks) and V\u00e4ster\u00e5s (ABB robotics, power and automation). The area around the capitol, Stockholm<\/i><\/b><\/a>, is also a center for telecom and IT industry and software developers.<\/p>\n Stockholm has been the capitol of Sweden since 1436 AD. The city itself has a population of about 1,400,000; with the surrounding urban area about 2 million. Most tourists will arrive to Sweden in ARN, Stockholm-Arlanda Airport.<\/p>\n The city of Stockholm<\/i>, built on the islands in the inlet of lake M\u00e4laren, offers a lot of interesting things for a foreign visitor, such as medieval architecture, museums, theatre, opera, exhibitions, royal castles, shopping, boat tours in the archipelago,\u2026<\/p>\n My American friends, who visited a couple of years ago, fell in love with the huge and equable drumhorse Harry who, carrying the kettledrums, led the mounted life guards to the changing of the guards at the royal castle.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n G\u00f6taland<\/i><\/b> (Gothia), means the land of the Goths (or Geats, as they were mentioned in the Beowulf epic).<\/p>\n G\u00f6taland has two major urban areas, G\u00f6teborg<\/i><\/b> (Gothenburg), and Malm\u00f6<\/i><\/b> (Malmoe), both highly industrialized.<\/p>\n G\u00f6teborg<\/i><\/b>, with it\u2019s big harbor, is often associated with Volvo cars and trucks, and a few miles to the north, in Trollh\u00e4ttan<\/i><\/b>, you used to find the SAAB factory\u2026 now dormant with new owners that are planning to build electric cars there. The rocky coastline around G\u00f6teborg is highly treasured by foreign tourists as well as by Swedish boating people, but the local fishermen are still holding on to their trade in numerous small harbors.<\/p>\n Being a center for shipping, located just across the North Sea, G\u00f6teborg has always had strong ties to England, and still has.<\/p>\n Trivia: The connection to England can be observed by the fact that the first names \u201cGlenn\u201d, “Ronnie” and other English-sounding names, are fairly common in G\u00f6teborg but almost never used in other parts of the country <\/i>:-<\/i>).<\/i><\/p>\n People in G\u00f6teborg use to say that the west coast, where G\u00f6teborg is located, is Sweden\u2019s front side; imagine what they say about the east coast (where Stockholm is)\u2026<\/p>\n Across the country from Gothenburg is a rich agricultural area in the provinces of V\u00e4sterg\u00f6tland, \u00d6sterg\u00f6tland, and S\u00f6dermanland. In the Middle Ages, this was the heartland where the kingdom of Sweden was created.<\/p>\n Way <\/b>down south lies the city of Malm\u00f6<\/i><\/b>, the third city in size, administrative center for the county of Sk\u00e5ne<\/i><\/b> (Scania). Situated on the south coast and connected with a bridge to the Danish capitol, Malm\u00f6 and Copenhagen are in fact beginning to become one single urban area, straddling the border in the \u00d6resund Strait. A few centuries ago, Sk\u00e5ne was actually part of Denmark. Malm\u00f6 is surrounded by farmland; the soil in certain parts is classified to be among the best in Europe.<\/p>\n The nearby city of Lund<\/i><\/b> has a cathedral from the 12th<\/sup> century, a university founded 1666 (with the original name \u201cRegia Academia Carolina\u201d), and is a center for scientific research.<\/p>\n The province of Sk\u00e5ne has a large number of castles, many of them open for visitors. Sk\u00e5ne has always been a rich part of the country, thanks to its rich soil and excellent location for trade with the rest of the European continent. The large number of castles bears evidence of the province\u2019s wealthy past.<\/p>\n North of Sk\u00e5ne lies the province of Sm\u00e5land<\/i><\/b> (which literally means \u201cthe little lands\u201d), a highly industrialized area full of small industries, most notably the IKEA<\/b> headquarters and origin.<\/p>\n A little further north, the province of \u00d6sterg\u00f6tland<\/i><\/b> (East Gothland, not to be confused with the island and province of Gotland) is another region of high-tech industrial and educational importance around the city of Link\u00f6ping<\/i><\/b><\/a> (SAAB military aircraft).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" An Overview Of Sweden Geography of Sweden Sweden is a rather small and oblong country in northern Europe, located on the same latitude as the state of Alaska (between map coordinates 69\u00b03\u2019N \u2013 55\u00b020N, which corresponds to the latitudes of the Alaskan cities of Nome and Ketchikan). The distance from north to south is 1,572 … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"parent":237,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"yst_prominent_words":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swedishfreak.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/4472"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swedishfreak.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swedishfreak.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swedishfreak.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swedishfreak.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4472"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.swedishfreak.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/4472\/revisions"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swedishfreak.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/237"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swedishfreak.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4472"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swedishfreak.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=4472"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Norrland: the Arctic region<\/b><\/h3>\n
<\/a>Svealand, The Middle Kingdom<\/b><\/h3>\n
<\/a>The southmost part, G\u00f6taland<\/b><\/h3>\n
<\/a>
Picture from svt.se<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n