Sweden – Geography, population & nature

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As a part of Scandinavia, Sweden is located in the very north of Europe. It is the third largest country in Western Europe and covers an area of around 450 000 km². Huge parts of the country, more than half of it, consist of forest. Due to the country`s size, the weather differs rather much between the north and the south. In the southern parts of Sweden it can be quite warm during the summers and not much colder than in other countries farther south. The more north you come the colder it is, of course.

Most of the population lives in the southern and central parts of the country, the north is in fact rather sparsely inhabited. The three largest cities are Stockholm with around , Gothenburg (Göteborg) and Malmö.

You will easily see the rather interesting distribution of people and land. In fact, Sweden is a huge country (can be compared to Spain) with only around 9 million inhabitants.

In Swedish landscape, forest and water dominate. More than half of the country is covered by forest and huge parts are surrounded by the sea. Furthermore, Sweden has numerous lakes, some of them rather huge like the Vänern or Vättern (located in the southern central parts of the country).

Nature seems to be of greatest importance in Sweden, not only to the Swedes themselves but also to the many tourists coming to this country primarily in order to explore the bautiful nature. For that reason it is very important to try to keep nature and landscape as it is.

Sweden has also a variety of nationalparks and zoos to offer – those ones with focus on Nordic animals attract visitors a lot, not only because there might be the chance to get very close to the famous Swedish moose. Of course, it is not that rare to encounter a moose in open landscape as well, for instance nearby the motorway. This is then one of the very special moments for all enthusiasts of flora and fauna and for those who consider it necessary to have seen a moose when in Sweden (as the moose is one of the most widespread stereotyping symbols existing about this country.

This sign can indeed be seen rather often, also in the southern parts of the country where you would not suspect moose to occur in the first place. They are, in fact, more frequent the more north you come.