About Sweden

Measured by its size, Sweden is not a small country; it’s as big as California or France.

But the population is only 9,4 million, and with this in mind, it is rather extraordinary that so many global companies and well known inventions originate from Sweden. IKEA, H&M, Volvo, Husqvarna, ABB and TetraPac, as well as the pacemaker, modem and computer mouse were invented here.

According to the European Innovation Scoreboard, Sweden is the most innovative and entrepreneurial nation in Europe, while maintaining a very high quality of life.

The countryside varies from forests in the north to open agriculture areas in the south. Half of its land area is covered by forests, and less than 10% is farmland, most of which is situated in the southernmost district, Skåne. The distance from north to south is 1600 kilometers; the country thus incorporates a fairly wide spectrum of climate zones.

More than a third of the population lives in the three largest cities - Stockholm (the capital), Gothenburg (the port city on the west coast) and Malmö in the far south.

Sweden experiences extreme contrasts between its long summer days and equally long winter nights. In the summer, the sun stays in the sky around the clock in the parts of Sweden north of the Arctic Circle, but even as far south as Jönköping, the June nights have only a few hours of semi-darkness.

Considering its geographic location, Sweden enjoys a favorable climate. This is mainly because of the Gulf Stream, a warm ocean current that flows off Norway’s west coast.