Geography of Sweden

Terrain

Much of Sweden is heavily forested, with 69% of the country being forest and woodland, while farmland constitutes only 8% of land use. Southern Sweden is predominantly agricultural, with increasing forest coverage northward. Mountains and hills are dominant in the west. About 15% of Sweden lies north of the Arctic Circle.

The lowest elevation in Sweden is in the bay of Lake Hammarsjön, near Kristianstad at −2.41 m (−7.91 ft) below sea level. The highest point is Kebnekaise at 2,111 m (6,926 ft) above sea level.

The highest population density is in the Öresund region in southern Sweden and in the valley of lake Mälaren near to Stockholm. Vänern and Vättern are Sweden's largest lakes. Vänern is the third largest in Europe, after Lake Ladoga and Lake Onega in Russia.

Sweden consists of 39,960 km² of water area, constituting around 95,700 lakes. The lakes are sometimes used for water power plants, especially the large northern rivers and lakes. The two largest islands are Gotland and Öland in the southeast. They each have their own culture, most notably Gotland with the old, largely intact and heritage-filled city Visby.

Provinces

Sweden has 25 provinces or landskap ("landscapes"), based on culture, geography and history: Bohuslän, Blekinge, Dalarna, Dalsland, Gotland, Gästrikland, Halland, Hälsingland, Härjedalen, Jämtland, Lapland, Medelpad, Norrbotten, Närke, Skåne, Småland, Södermanland, Uppland, Värmland, Västmanland, Västerbotten, Västergötland, Ångermanland, Öland and Östergötland.

While these provinces serve no political or administrative purpose, they play an important role for people's self-identification. The provinces are usually grouped together in three large lands (landsdelar): the northern Norrland, the central Svealand and southern Götaland. The sparsely populated Norrland encompasses almost 60% of the country.

Counties

Administratively, Sweden is divided into 21 counties, or län. In each county there is a County Administrative Board, or länsstyrelse, which is appointed by the national government.

In each county there is also a separate County Council, or landsting, which is the municipal representation appointed by the county electorate.

The letters shown were on the vehicle registration plates until 1973.

Municipalities

Each county is further divided into municipalities or kommuner, ranging from only one (in Gotland County) to forty-nine (in Västra Götaland County). The total number of municipalities is 290.

The northern municipalities are often large in size, but have small populations – the largest municipality is Kiruna with an area as large as the three southern provinces in Sweden (Scania, Blekinge and Halland) combined, but it only has a population of 25,000, and its density is about 1 / km².

Population

Sweden has a population of about 9.8 million in 2015. The north is less populated than the southern and central parts, mostly because of its colder climate.

Cities

Cities and towns in Sweden are not political or administrative entities but localities or urban areas, independent of the municipal subdivision. The largest city, in terms of population, is the capital Stockholm, in the east, the dominant city for culture and media, with a population of 1,250,000. The second largest city is Gothenburg, with 510,500, in the west. The third largest is Malmö in the south, with 258,000. The largest city in the north is Umeå with 76,000 inhabitants.

Environment

Acid rain has become an issue because it is damaging soils and lakes and polluting the North Sea and the Baltic Sea. The HBV hydrology transport model has been used to analyze nutrient discharge to the Baltic from tributary watersheds.

Extreme points

The extreme points of Sweden include the coordinates that are farthest north, south, east and west in Sweden, and the ones that are at the highest and the lowest elevations in the country. In opposite to Norway and Denmark, Sweden has no external territories that can be considered either inside or outside the country depending on definition, meaning that the extreme points of Sweden are unambiguous.

The latitude and longitude are expressed in decimal degree notation, in which a positive latitude value refers to the Northern Hemisphere, and a negative value refers to the Southern Hemisphere. Additionally, a negative elevation value refers to land below sea level. The coordinates used in this article are sourced from Google Earth, which makes use of the World Geodetic System (WGS) 84, a geodetic reference system.

Latitude and longitude

Sweden's northernmost point is Treriksröset, in the Lapland province, where the borders of Sweden, Norway, and Finland meet. The closest Swedish city to the area is Kiruna, which is Sweden's northern-most city. Sweden's southernmost point is in the harbour of the fishing village Smygehuk, near the city of Trelleborg, which borders the Baltic Sea. At the pier of the harbour, a signpost displays the exact position of the point, as well as the distance to Treriksröset, Stockholm, Berlin, Paris, and Moscow.

Sweden's westernmost point is on Stora Drammen, an islet in Skagerrak outside the coast of Bohuslän. Seabirds and harbor seals have colonies on the islet, but it is uninhabited by humans. Sweden's easternmost point is on Kataja, an islet south of Haparanda in the Bothnian Bay. The islet is divided between Sweden and Finland. The border was established in 1809, after the Finnish War, between what was previously two islets, a Swedish one called Kataja and a smaller Finnish one called Inakari. Since 1809, post-glacial rebound has caused the sea level in the region to drop relative to land level, joining the two islets. If counting the mainland only, Stensvik in Strömstad is Sweden's westernmost point, and Sundholmen in Haparanda is the easternmost point.

Elevation

The highest point in Sweden is Kebnekaise, which stands at 2,098 metres (6,883 ft) (August 2014). It is in the Scandinavian Mountains chain, in the province of Lapland. The mountain has two peaks, of which the glaciated southern one is the highest at 2,104 metres (6,903 ft). The northern peak, which stands at 2,096 metres (6,877 ft), is free of ice. Although the south top is traditionally said to be 2,111 metres (6,926 ft) high, new measurements have shown that the glacier has shrunk fairly fast; therefore the summit is not as high as earlier. It was 2,104 metres (6,903 ft) in 2008. Other points of comparable height in the vicinity of Kebnekaise include Sarektjåkka at 2,089 metres (6,854 ft), and Kaskasatjåkka at 2,076 metres (6,811 ft). If the summers of 2016 and 2017 get as warm as the previous years, the northern peak will become the highest.

Sweden's lowest point, which is 2.41 metres (7.91 ft) below sea level, is in the Kristianstads Vattenrike Biosphere Reserve in the city of Kristianstad. The point is at the bottom of what was once Nosabyviken, a bay on the lake of Hammarsjön. The bay was drained in the 1860s by John Nun Milner, an engineer, to get more arable land for Kristianstad.

Transportation

Only public transportation.