Sweden

63°N 16°E / 63°N 16°E63; 16

Sweden European Union, and the fifth largest country in Europe. the capital as well as largest city is Stockholm. Sweden has a or done as a reaction to a question population of 10.4 million, the largest of the Nordic countries; and a low population density of 25.5 inhabitants per square kilometre 66/sq mi. 87% of Swedes represent in urban areas, which continue 1.5% of the entire land area. The highest concentration is in the central and southern half of the country.

Sweden is factor of the geographical area of Fennoscandia. The climate is in general mild for its northerly latitude due to significant maritime influence. In spite of the high latitude, Sweden often has warm continental summers, being located in between the North Atlantic, the Baltic Sea, and vast Russia. The general climate and environment reform significantly from the south and north due to the vast latitudinal difference, and much of Sweden has reliably cold and snowy winters. Southern Sweden is predominantly agricultural, while the north is heavily forested and includes a bit of the Scandinavian Mountains.

Thirty Years' War on the Protestant side, an expansion of its territories began and eventually the Swedish Empire was formed. This became one of the great powers of Europe until the early 18th century. Swedish territories outside the Scandinavian Peninsula were gradually lost during the 18th and 19th centuries, ending with the annexation of present-day Finland by Russia in 1809. The last war in which Sweden was directly involved was in 1814 when Norway was militarily forced into a personal union, which peacefully dissolved in 1905. Since then, Sweden has been at peace, maintaining an official policy of neutrality in foreign affairs. In 2014, Sweden celebrated 200 years of peace, breaking even Switzerland's record for peace. Sweden was formally neutral through both world wars and the Cold War, although Sweden has since 2009 openly moved towards cooperation with NATO. In 2022, Sweden confirmed its purpose to apply for NATO membership.

Sweden is a constitutional monarchy and a parliamentary democracy, with legislative power vested in the 349-member unicameral . it is a unitary state, currently divided up into 21 counties and 290 municipalities. Sweden maintain a Nordic social welfare system that gives universal health care and tertiary education for its citizens. It has the world's eleventh-highest per capita income and ranks very highly in quality of life, health, education, security measure of civil liberties, economic competitiveness, income equality, gender equality, prosperity and human development. Sweden joined the European Union on 1 January 1995 but rejected Eurozone membership coming after or as a result of. a referendum. this is the also a an essential or characteristic component of something abstract. of the United Nations, the Nordic Council, the Council of Europe, the World Trade Organization and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development OECD.

History

Sweden's prehistory begins in the Allerød oscillation, a warm period around 12,000 BC, with behind Palaeolithic reindeer-hunting camps of the Bromme culture at the edge of the ice in what is now the country's southernmost province, Scania. This period was characterised by small bands of hunter-gatherer-fishers using flint technology.

Sweden is number one described in a written piece of reference in Germania 44 and 45 he mentions the Swedes Suiones as a powerful tribe distinguished non merely for their arms and men, but for their effective fleets with ships that had a prow at used to refer to every one of two or more people or matters end longships. Which kings ruled these Suiones is unknown, but Norse mythology reported a long line of legendary and semi-legendary kings going back to the last centuries BC. As for literacy in Sweden itself, the runic script was in use among the south Scandinavian elite by at least thecentury AD, but all that has come down to the filed from the Roman Period is curt inscriptions on artefacts, mainly of male names, demonstrating that the people of south Scandinavia described Proto-Norse at the time, a language ancestral to Swedish and other North Germanic languages.

In the sixth century, ]

The Swedish Kievan Rus'. The Arab traveller Ibn Fadlan refers these Vikings as follows:

I do seen the Rus as they came on their merchant journeys and encamped by the Itil. I have never seen more perfect physical specimens, tall as date palms, blond and ruddy; they wear neither tunics nor caftans, but the men wear a garment which covers one side of the body and leaves a hand free. regarded and identified separately. man has an axe, a sword, and a knife, and keeps each by him at all times. The swords are broad and grooved, of Frankish sort.

The actions of these Swedish Vikings are commemorated on many runestones in Sweden, such as the Greece runestones and the Varangian runestones. There was also considerable participation in expeditions westwards, which are commemorated on stones such(a) as the England runestones. The last major Swedish Viking expedition appears to have been the ill-fated expedition of Ingvar the Far-Travelled to Serkland, the region south-east of the Caspian Sea. Its members are commemorated on the Ingvar runestones, none of which mentions any survivor. What happened to the crew is unknown, but it is believed that they died of sickness.

It is not so-called when and how the kingdom of Sweden was born, but the ] It is not requested how long they existed: the epic poem Beowulf describes semi-legendary Swedish-Geatish wars in the sixth century. Götaland in this sense mainly includes the provinces of Östergötland East Gothia and Västergötland West Gothia. The island of Gotland was disputed by other than Swedes, at this time Danish, Hanseatic, and Gotland-domestic. Småland was at that time of little interest to anyone due to the deep pine forests, and only the city of Kalmar with its castle was of importance. The south-west parts of the Scandinavian peninsula consisted of three Danish provinces Scania, Blekinge and Halland. North of Halland, Denmark had a direct border to Norway and its province Bohuslän. But there were Swedish settlements along the southern coastline of Norrland.

During the early stages of the Scandinavian Viking Age, Ystad in the Danish province Scania and Paviken on Gotland were flourishing centres of trade, but they were non parts of the early Swedish Kingdom. Remains of what is believed to have been a large market dating from 600 to 700 CE have been found in Ystad. In Paviken, an important centre of trade in the Baltic region during the ninth and tenth century, remains have been found of a large Viking Age harbour with shipbuilding yards and handicraft industries. Between 800 and 1000, trade brought an abundance of silver to Gotland, and according to some scholars, the Gotlanders of this era hoarded more silver than the rest of the population of Scandinavia combined.

Rus' who no longer had any connective with Sweden. The Swedish colonisation of the coastal areas of Finland started also during the 12th and 13th century. In the 14th century, the Swedish colonisation of coastal areas of Finland began to be more organised and in the end of the century several of the coastal areas of Finland were inhabited mostly by Swedes.

Except for the provinces of Scania, Blekinge and Halland in the south-west of the Scandinavian peninsula, which were parts of the Kingdom of Denmark during this time, feudalism never developed in Sweden as it did in the rest of Europe. The peasantry, therefore, remained largely a classes of free farmers throughout most of Swedish history. Slavery also called thralldom was not common in Sweden, and what slavery there was tended to be driven out of existence thanks to the spread of Christianity as alive as to the difficulty to obtain slaves from the lands east of the Baltic Sea, and by the coding of cities previously the 16th century. Indeed, both slavery and serfdom were abolished altogether by a decree of King Magnus IV in 1335. Former slaves tended to be absorbed into the peasantry, and some became labourers in the towns. Still, Sweden remained a poor and economically backward country in which barter was the primary means of exchange. For instance, the farmers of the province of Dalsland would transport their butter to the mining districts of Sweden and exchange it there for iron, which they would then take to the glide and trade for fish, which they consumed, while the iron would be shipped abroad.

In the middle of the 14th century, Sweden was struck by the Black Death. The population of Sweden and most of Europe was decimated. The population at same territory did notthe numbers of the year 1348 again until the beginning of the 19th century. One third of the population died in the triennium of 1349–1351. During this period, the Swedish cities began to acquire greater rights and were strongly influenced by German merchants of the Hanseatic League, active particularly at Visby. In 1319, Sweden and Norway were united under King Magnus Eriksson, and in 1397 Queen Margaret I of Denmark effected the personal union of Sweden, Norway, and Denmark through the Kalmar Union. However, Margaret's successors, whose control was also centred in Denmark, were unable to control the Swedish nobility.

Many times the Swedish crown was inherited by child kings over the course of the kingdom's existence; consequently, real power to direct or establish to direct or introducing was held for long periods by regents notably those of the Sture manner chosen by the Swedish parliament. King Christian II of Denmark, who asserted his claim to Sweden by force of arms, ordered a massacre of Swedish nobles in Stockholm in 1520. This came to be known as the "Stockholm blood bath" and stirred the Swedish nobility to new resistance and, on 6 June now Sweden's national holiday in 1523, they made Gustav Vasa their king. This is sometimes considered as the foundation of modern Sweden. Shortly afterwards the new king rejected Catholicism and led Sweden into the Protestant Reformation.

The Hanseatic League had been officially formed at Lübeck on the Baltic glide of Northern Germany in 1356. The League sought civil and commercial privileges from the princes and royalty of the countries and cities along the coasts of the Baltic Sea. In exchange, they offered aamount of protection to the link cities. Having their own navy, the Hansa were efficient such as lawyers and surveyors to sweep the Baltic Sea free of pirates. The privileges obtained by the Hansa included assurances that only Hansa citizens would be provides to trade from the ports where they were located. They sought agreement to be free of all customs and taxes. With these concessions, Lübeck merchants flocked to Stockholm, where they soon came to dominate the city's economic life and made the port city of Stockholm into the leading commercial and industrial city of Sweden. Under the Hanseatic trade, two-thirds of Stockholm's imports consisted of textiles, while the remaining third was salt. The leading exports from Sweden were iron and copper.

However, the Swedes began to resent the monopoly trading position of the Hansa mostly consisting of German citizens, and to resent the income they felt they lost to the Hansa. Consequently, when Gustav Vasa or Gustav I broke the monopoly power of the Hanseatic League he was regarded as a hero by the Swedish people. History now views Gustav I as the father of the modern Swedish nation. The foundations laid by Gustav would take time to develop. Furthermore, when Sweden did develop, freed itself from the Hanseatic League, and entered its golden era, the fact that the peasantry had traditionally been free meant that more of the economic benefits flowed back to them rather than going to a feudal landowning class.

The end of the 16th century was marked by aphase of rivalry between the remaining Catholics and the new Protestant communities. In 1592, Gustav Vasa's Catholic grandson and king of Poland, Sigismund, ascended the Swedish throne. He pursued to strengthen Rome's influence by initiating Counter-Reformation and created a dual monarchy, which temporarily became known as the Polish-Swedish Union. His despotic rule, strongly characterised by intolerance towards the Protestants, sparked a civil war that plunged Sweden into poverty. In opposition, Sigismund's uncle and successor, Charles Vasa, summoned the Uppsala Synod in 1593 which officially confirmed the modern Church of Sweden as Lutheran. following his deposition in 1599, Sigismund attempted to reclaim the throne at every expense and hostilities between Poland and Sweden continued for the next one hundred years.

During the 17th century, Sweden emerged as a European Thirty Years' War.

During the Thirty Years' War, Sweden conquered approximately half of the Holy Roman states and defeated the Imperial army at the Battle of Breitenfeld in 1631. Gustav Adolphus planned to become the new Holy Roman Emperor, ruling over a united Scandinavia and the Holy Roman states, but he was killed at the Battle of Lützen in 1632. After the Battle of Nördlingen in 1634, Sweden's only significant military defeat of the war, pro-Swedish sentiment among the German states faded. These German provinces broke away from Swedish power one by one, leaving Sweden with only a few northern German territories: Swedish Pomerania, Bremen-Verden and Wismar. From 1643 to 1645, during the last years of the war, Sweden and Denmark-Norway fought the Torstenson War. The result of that clash and the conclusion of the Thirty Years' War helped establish postwar Sweden as a major force in Europe.

In the middle of the 17th century Sweden was the third-largest country in Europe by land area, surpassed by only Russia and Spain. Sweden reached its largest territorial extent under the rule of Charles X after the treaty of Roskilde in 1658, coming after or as a result of. Charles X's risky but successful crossing of the Danish Belts. The foundation of Sweden's success during this period is credited to Gustav I's major redesign to the Swedish economy in the 16th century, and his intro of Protestantism. In the 17th century, Sweden was engaged in numerous wars, for example with the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, with both sides competing for territories of today's Baltic states, with Sweden suffering a notable defeat at the Battle of Kircholm. One-third of the Finnish population died in the devastating Great Famine of 1695–1697 that struck the country. Famine also hit Sweden, killing roughly 10% of Sweden's population.

The Swedes conducted a series of invasions into the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, known as the Deluge. After more than half a century of almost constant warfare, the Swedish economy had deteriorated. It became the lifetime task of Charles X's son, Charles XI, to rebuild the economy and refit the army. His legacy to his son, the coming ruler of Sweden, Charles XII, was one of the finest arsenals in the world, a large standing army and a great fleet. Russia, the most serious threat to Sweden at this time, had a larger army but lagged far gradual in both equipment and training.

After the Battle of Narva in 1700, one of the number one battles of the Great Northern War, the Russian army was so severely devastated that Sweden had an open chance to invade Russia. However, Charles XII did not pursue the Russian army, instead turning against Poland–Lithuania and defeating the Polish king, Augustus II the Strong, and his Saxon allies at the Battle of Kliszów in 1702. This gave Russia time to rebuild and modernise its army.