Stockholm is the capital and largest city in the country of Sweden. Sweden is the largest country in Scandinavia in population (more than 10 million), area (though Denmark is larger if you throw in possessions Greenland and the Faroe Islands) and GDP (above $500 billion). Despite its far northern latitude (approximately the same as Alaska’s), Sweden’s climate is milder than one might think, especially in the south, where Stockholm is. In mid-summer, high temperatures in Stockholm average in the 70’s (highs in the 90’s have even been recorded), and lows average in the upper 50’s. Even in the depths of winter, average lows are in the mid-20’s (though sub-zero temperatures have occurred), with highs in the low 30’s. But one latitude effect that’s inescapable is the lack of daylight in the winter (days are only about 6 hours long in late December) and the lack of darkness in the summer (in late June it never gets darker than twilight).

Stockholm is located at the point where Sweden’s third-largest lake, known as Lake Mälaren, empties into the Baltic Sea. As recently as Viking times, this lake was not a lake at all, but was a bay of the Baltic, and a town called Birka, on an island in the bay, was a major port for trade. The reason for the change goes back 11,000 years. While Stockholm’s climate is reasonably pleasant now, this was not the case 11,000 years ago, when the region was covered by an ice sheet which was about 3 km thick. While it must have been incredibly cold to freeze that much ice, that much ice would also have been incredibly heavy. So heavy, in fact, that it significantly compressed the ground underneath it. As the climate warmed up (undoubtedly from cavemen watching big TV’s and driving SUV’s), the weight of the ice sheet was reduced, and something known as “post-glacial rebound” began. For 2,000 years, the ground rose at a rate of about 7.5 cm/year, after which the rebound continued, but at a slowing rate. Today, the ice sheet is long gone, but the ground continues to rise, at a rate under 1 cm/year, and Lake Mälaren is about 3 feet above sea level, on average. The rebound has also had effects offshore, with the appearance of several islands and islets. “Several” as in “lots and lots” – the islands are collectively known as the Stockholm archipelago, and there are something like 24,000 of them.

14 of these islands are within Stockholm’s city limits, to go along with some mainland territory. The city is thought to have been founded on one of these islands in 1187 A.D., to protect the town of Sigtuna (another town on Lake Mälaren, which had largely replaced Birka as the main trading port) from invasion by sea. As navigation to Lake Mälaren became more difficult, Stockholm inherited the role of principal trade port.

In 1397, Sweden entered with Denmark and Norway into an alliance known as the Kalmar Union to counter the influence of a group of Germanic states, known as the Hanseatic League, which was seeking to expand into Scandinavia. The member countries of the Kalmar Union were recognized as separate countries, but they agreed to share a monarch, who would be Danish. This arrangement worked, more or less, as far as fending off the Hanseatic League was concerned, but Sweden was generally unhappy with this loss of its sovereignty, and there were interruptions in the alliance throughout the 15th Century. In 1520, after some incidents of unrest, the newly-crowned Christian II invited the nobles who had been involved in these incidents to a celebration in Stockholm, in which all would be forgiven. The celebration took place, but did not end as expected, as the well-fed nobles were arrested and executed, in an episode known as the Stockholm Bloodbath. This led a man named Gustav Vasa, whose father had been one of the victims, to organize a revolt which would successfully break Sweden away from the Kalmar Union for good. Gustav was crowned King Gustav I, and is considered to be the father of modern Sweden.

In the 17th Century, King Gustavus Adolphus, also known as Gustav II Adolf, turned Sweden into a major military power, proving to be one of the greatest military commanders of his time. He acquired a significant amount of territory during the Thirty Years’ War, and was looking to acquire more, when he was killed in battle in 1632. He has been celebrated as the main defender of the Protestant cause during the Thirty Years’ War, as well as the creator of the Swedish Empire.

The Swedish Empire lasted until the early 18th Century, at which time they became involved in the Great Northern War, in which Russia, under Peter the Great, successfully supplanted Sweden as the dominant power in the Baltic region after 21 years of bitter fighting.

Over the rest of the 18th Century, Sweden lost most of its non-Scandinavian territory in bits and pieces, and finally lost modern-day Finland to Russia in 1809, in the relatively brief Finnish War. But in an effort to regain some of its lost territory, Sweden allied itself with France in the Napoleonic Wars. This obviously didn’t work out as well as they might have hoped, but Sweden was able to annex Norway after a brief campaign in 1814. This would be the last military campaign Sweden would be involved in, at least up to the present day. One other outcome of the French alliance involved the Swedish monarchy. By 1810, it had become clear that the Swedish king, Charles XIII, was aging rapidly and would not be able to produce an heir. The Swedish government was called upon to determine a successor, and they surprised many by going outside Sweden to get one, appointing one of Napoleon’s generals, Jean Bernadotte, to be the new crown prince. Bernadotte was immediately placed in charge of Sweden’s military forces, and soon also took charge of the country as regent. Bernadotte elected to not try reacquiring Finland from Russia, as it would only lead to further conflicts, but he did lead the campaign that ended in the acquisition of Norway. In 1818, the old king died and Bernadotte changed his name to Charles XIV John (actually Karl XIV Johan), the first monarch of the Bernadotte dynasty.

The rest of the 19th Century passed rather peacefully for Sweden. The country was late to the Industrial Revolution, being content to pass through most of the century as a not-very-wealthy agrarian state. Emigration was common during this time, with more than a million Swedes leaving for the United States, largely settling in the Midwest. Sweden did start to awaken to modern industry late in the century, with one of its major industrialists being Alfred Nobel. Nobel is famous for having invented dynamite, but he also held 354 other patents. He owned a company called Bofors, which he redirected from iron and steel production to the manufacture of cannon and other armaments. As he got older, it occurred to him that he’d be remembered by many as a death merchant unless he did something radically philanthropic, so he bequeathed the bulk of his fortune to the creation and funding of the Nobel Prizes, which started going out to deserving recipients in 1901, after his death in 1896.

In 1905, Sweden agreed to a peaceful dissolution of the union between Sweden and Norway, and Norway became an independent monarchy (a Danish prince agreed to become Norway’s king). Things did not remain peaceful for long, however, as World War I broke out in 1914. Sweden and Norway both remained officially neutral, though Sweden supplied a certain amount of aid to Germany. In World War II, Sweden again remained neutral, but Norway became occupied by the Germans. Sweden didn’t want to be occupied, so they supplied a certain amount of materiel to Germany throughout the war. But at the same time Sweden quietly supported Norwegian resistance to their occupiers, and by 1943 was accepting Jewish refugees from Denmark and from Hungary. The Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg is famous for having rescued thousands of Hungarian Jews from deportation to concentration camps.

After the war, Sweden expanded its industry to supply much of the rebuilding of Europe, receiving aid under the Marshall Plan. The country did not join either NATO or the Warsaw Pact, though its economic (and to some extent military) alliances have primarily been with the west. Sweden joined the European Union in 1995, but has retained its own currency (the Swedish krona is worth about 11 cents in U.S. money as this is being written). Despite a high level of government services (and taxes), Sweden remains an essentially capitalist country, supplying electronics, Volvos and IKEA furniture to a hungry world. They also remain a constitutional monarchy, with the current king being Carl XVI Gustaf, the latest monarch of the House of Bernadotte. The eldest daughter of Carl Gustaf and his consort, Queen Silvia, and the heir apparent, is Crown Princess Victoria.

To get to Stockholm, we boarded an SAS flight from Prague’s Václav Havel Airport, and in less than two hours we arrived at Stockholm’s Arlanda Airport.


Arlanda Airport is 23 miles north of central Stockholm, and to make this journey we took a train called the Arlanda Express, which got us to the central station in 20 minutes. Our hotel, the Radisson Blu Waterfront, was adjacent to the station.

We checked into the hotel and found some dinner at the station. Though the time was around 9 PM, it wasn’t close to being dark out. Nevertheless, it had been a long day, and we headed back to the hotel. We had plans for the next day, starting with a visit to Sweden’s Royal Palace.