Stockholm, Sweden

Stockholm is the capital of Sweden and is also widely regarded as the unofficial capital of Scandinavia. As Scandinavia's largest city and one of its wealthiest and most cosmopolitan, Stockholm lies at the region's geographical, economic, and cultural heart. Thanks to its strategic location amid a system of natural waterways—the islands on which Stockholm is built exist where the fresh waters of Lake Mälaren on the city's western side meet the brackish waters of the Baltic Sea to the east—Stockholm has historically served as a center for international trade.

The city, with its thriving stock market and concentration of high-tech industries, continues to prosper. Stockholm's robust economy and the distinctive beauty of its marine setting and graceful architecture have made the city a magnet for multinational companies, immigrants, and tourists.

Landscape

Located on Sweden's eastern coast, Stockholm is a city surrounded by water. Nearly a third of the city's central area consists of bays and channels separating the more than a dozen small islands and peninsulas upon which Stockholm is built. Stockholm's contemporary business and shopping district (Norrmalm) is the only part of the capital not constructed on an island. A subway system connects it to other parts of the city and numerous bridges link the various islands.

Extending eighty kilometers (fifty miles) east of the city out into the Baltic is the vast Stockholm archipelago, which consists of some 24,000 islets and islands, around 150 of which are permanently inhabited by several thousand residents. During the summer months, the archipelago draws large numbers of vacationers and boaters.

Stockholm is also renowned for its so-called green zones. While water makes up almost a third of the city's area, parks and open spaces occupy another third. The city's abundant waterways remain, however, its chief claim to fame; because of them, many admirers have described Stockholm as the "Venice of the North."

Stockholm has a cool, temperate climate characterized by mild summers and snowy winters. The average temperature in winter is 1 degree Celsius (34 degrees Fahrenheit) and in summer 21 degrees Celsius (70 degrees Fahrenheit). Stockholm's northern latitude also drives dramatic shifts in the number of hours of daylight each season. In late December, the daylight period lasts about six hours, while in late June it lasts more than eighteen hours.

People

As of 2023, according to the US Central Intelligence Agency's World Factbook, the population of Stockholm was estimated at 1.7 million. Since 1995, Stockholm has experienced one of the fastest population growth rates in Europe.

Immigration from non-Scandinavian countries has also swelled the city's population. As of 2012, the County Administrative Board of Stockholm reported that immigrants from 179 countries and about 32 percent of Swedish residents of foreign background were living in Stockholm County. According to World Population Review, 14 percent of the population of Stockholm was foreign born in 2024; this is the highest percentage of any Nordic city. Drawn by the bustling economy and a tradition of generous social welfare policies, sizeable numbers of first- and second-generation immigrants have settled in Stockholm's suburbs. Many of these immigrants have come from Syria, Afghanistan, and other countries in the Middle East; the former Yugoslavia; Africa; and Asia. Some have struggled with ongoing problems of housing segregation and high rates of unemployment.

As home to several prestigious universities as well as many information technology, health care, research, and governmental interests, Stockholm's population includes a large percentage of Sweden's professional workers.

Economy

The Stockholm region is Sweden's economic hub. It features the busiest seaports in the Baltic and is served by several international airports. Stockholm's economy continues to grow faster than that of Sweden as a whole. According to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, between 2000 and 2016 Stockholm alone was responsible for 42 percent of the country's growth in gross domestic product. It is also the seat of Sweden's principal stock exchange.

In addition to its significant shipbuilding industry, Stockholm's manufacturing sector produces machinery, textiles, clothing, paper, chemicals, communications equipment, motor vehicles, rubber, processed food, printed materials, porcelain, and liquor.

Modern Stockholm's economic might, however, is based primarily on the knowledge-based and service sectors rather than the manufacturing component of its economy, which, according to the development company Stockholm Business Region, accounted for less than 10 percent of Stockholm County's industry in 2016. On the heels of Sweden's 1995 entry into the European Union, Stockholm has become an international magnet for high-tech companies, especially in the electronics industry. Furthermore, the city has consistently attracted large numbers of start-up companies, particularly those in the technology sector; many of these have proven financially successful, giving Stockholm an increased reputation for entrepreneurial savvy. According to Stockholm Business Region, by 2017 the city was second only to Silicon Valley in California for having the highest number of highly valued privately held start-up companies per capita. The city touts its support system for startups and its status as an innovation leader.

Landmarks

Stockholm's blend of modern Swedish architecture and exquisitely-preserved historical districts has earned the city a reputation as one of the world's loveliest. The Swedish government's policy of neutrality during both world wars spared the city's historical center from the destruction visited upon other European capitals during those conflicts. The Old Town (Gamla Stan), located on an island at the center of Stockholm, retains its medieval structure of winding alleyways, cobbled streets, steeples, and spires.

Drottningholm Palace, for centuries a residence of the Swedish royals, is famous for its carefully maintained parks and gardens and its Chinese Pavilion. It also boasts a court theater (built in 1766), which still has its original interior and working stage machinery.

Stockholm is home to a number of major museums. These include the Nordic Museum, famous for its exhibits on Renaissance and post-Renaissance Swedish culture; the Museum of National Antiquities, which features thousands of precious objects including gold jewelry from the Viking era; Skansen, the world's oldest open-air museum, which has on exhibit more than one hundred authentic old houses from all regions of Sweden; and the Vasa Museum, dedicated to the world's oldest restored warship, salvaged 333 years after she sank in Stockholm Harbor as she set out on her maiden voyage in 1628.

Among Stockholm's modern landmarks is its City Hall (Stadshuset). Built in the early twentieth century, the structure contains more than eight million bricks and nineteen million gilded mosaic tiles. It provides a regal setting for the Nobel Prize ceremony held there each winter. Another striking modern addition to the city is the Globe (Globen), the world's largest spherical building, built in 1988. The Globe is Stockholm's primary venue for concerts and indoor sporting events.

Other cultural and intellectual resources in Stockholm include royal academies of music, art, science and medicine, the Nobel Institute, an opera house, the national theater, and a zoo.

History

In the middle of the thirteenth century, Sweden's most powerful regent, Birger Jarl, founded what would become the city of Stockholm. Birger Jarl ordered the construction of a fort on a strategic water passage where Lake Mälaren meets the Baltic Sea so that he might control the flow of trading and military vessels. Within a century, Birger Jarl's fort had grown into the largest settlement in all of Sweden. Within two centuries, Stockholm had established itself as an important player in the European economy. The city owed much of its prosperity to its export of copper and iron, mined from inland Swedish provinces, to continental markets.

Stockholm's growing economic might made it an attractive target for invasion by Danish forces. Denmark's aggression culminated in a 1520 massacre known as the Stockholm bloodbath, in which one hundred Swedish noblemen and clergy were brutally executed despite having received a promise of amnesty from the Danish leader. These events led to nearly three centuries of almost continuous warfare between Sweden and Denmark.

Stockholm was proclaimed Sweden's capital in 1634 and underwent rapid expansion beyond the city's medieval core. The ambitious growth of Sweden's new capital, however, was curtailed by tragedies in the century to follow. A deadly famine drove thousands of starving Swedes to seek refuge in 1696 and a 1711 outbreak of bubonic plague claimed the lives of a third of the city's residents.

Stockholm rebounded from these disasters to become, in the eighteenth century, a center for the arts and sciences as well as a thriving trading center. Among other institutions, the Stockholm Observatory was founded during this period. Despite crowded, unhygienic living conditions, the capital continued to draw large numbers of Swedes from rural parts of the country. An influx of refugees fleeing bloody wars on the European continent also swelled the city's population in this era.

Stockholm's growth continued into the nineteenth century, which saw the establishment of a series of lectures in mathematics, physics, chemistry and geology that would eventually lead to the creation of Stockholm University. But most of the city's inhabitants at this time consisted of impoverished rural migrants with little or no formal education. They flocked to Stockholm to seek jobs in the rapidly industrializing city. Housing shortages led many of them to settle in sprawling slum districts in which the lack of public health and safety infrastructure—such as running water or a sewage system—made for dangerous and miserable living conditions.

The wealth generated for the elite of Stockholm's society by the new industrial economy also led to the expansion and beautification of other parts of the metropolis. City planners designed, over several decades beginning in the 1860s, new residential districts and broad boulevards still in existence today. Some parts of Stockholm were rebuilt according to a model inspired by the layout of Paris.

In a reflection of its increasing prestige on the world stage, Stockholm hosted the 1912 Summer Olympic Games. As the city continued to grow quickly in the decades that followed, city officials focused on modernizing gas, electrical, and transportation systems. A construction boom in the 1960s significantly expanded the city limits and replaced dilapidated residential neighborhoods with commercial and transportation infrastructure. This resulted in a Stockholm that remains virtually free of slums (at least in the city proper) but also produced what many regard as blights on Stockholm's traditionally charming architectural style.

In 2002, Stockholm held a year-long series of special events to commemorate the 750th anniversary of the city's founding by Birger Jarl. Due to its commitment toward sustainability, the city became the first to be recognized as the European Green Capital by the European Commission in 2010. Unfortunately, the city also became the site of the country's worst terrorist attack in several years in 2017 when a man drove a truck into a crowd of pedestrians, killing four.

Bibliography

Annual Report 2017. Stockholm Business Region, 2017, www.stockholmbusinessregion.com/globalassets/about-us/publications/stockholm-business-region‗annual-report‗2017.pdf. Accessed 19 Mar. 2019.

City of Stockholm, international.stockholm.se. Accessed 22 Dec. 2016.

"Facts and Figures." Stockholm: The Capital of Scandinavia, www.stockholmbusinessregion.com/facts-figures/. Accessed 19 Mar. 2019.

"Foreign-Born Inhabitants as a Share of Total Population in 2016." Nordregio, www.nordregio.org/maps/foreign-born-inhabitants-as-a-share-of-total-population-in-2016/. Accessed 19 Mar. 2019.

Griffiths, Tony. Stockholm: A Cultural History. Oxford UP, 2009.

Hall, Thomas, and Martin Rorby. Stockholm: The Making of a Metropolis. Routledge, 2009.

OECD: Regions and Cities at a Glance 2018—Sweden. OECD, 2018, www.oecd.org/cfe/SWEDEN-Regions-and-Cities-2018.pdf. Accessed 19 Mar. 2019.

Olsson, Amy Rader, and Jonathan Metzger. Sustainable Stockholm: Exploring Urban Sustainability in Europe's Greenest City. Routledge, 2013.

"Population in the Country, Counties and Municipalities on 31 December 2018 and Population Change in 2018." Statistics Sweden, www.scb.se/en/finding-statistics/statistics-by-subject-area/population/population-composition/population-statistics/pong/tables-and-graphs/yearly-statistics--municipalities-counties-and-the-whole-country/population-in-the-country-counties-and-municipalities-on-31122015-and-population-change-in-2015/. Accessed 19 Mar. 2019.

Sandell, Kaj. Stockholm. DK, 2014.

"Stockholm Population 2024." World Population Review, 2024, worldpopulationreview.com/world-cities/stockholm-population. Accessed 28 Feb. 2024.

"Sweden." World Factbook, US Central Intelligence Agency, 21 Feb. 2024, www.cia.gov/the-world-factbook/countries/sweden/. Accessed 28 Feb. 2024.

"Sweden Country Profile." BBC, 29 Mar. 2023, www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-17955808. Accessed 28 Feb 2024.