• 1 Sept 2023
• ⌘
• 12 min read

Table Contents

• 1. Geography
• 1.1 Europe
• 1.2 Nordics
• 1.3 Sweden
• 2. Nature
• Hours of Light
• 3. Inventions and brands
• Postnord
• IKEA
• Spotify
• Volvo and Saab
• Coop
• 4. Culture
• 4.1 Food
• Meat
• Chains
• Bread
• Sweets
• 4.2 Drinks
• 4.3 Design
• Font
• Clothing
• Architecture
• Museum
• Working
• NGO
• 5. Life
• Cities
• Bokkafe
• Arch
• Housing
• Skyddsrum
• Digital ID
• 6. People
• Pronuntiation
• Dress code
• Hobbies
• Travel
• 7. Opinions
• Refer

all of them. You may know it because of IKEA and its meatballs, Spotify, Ericsson, the unicorn Klarna. And also Volvo cars, the music group ABBA and Avicii. Its astonishing landscape with Northern Lights dancing on the sky. Americans will know it because of its social welfare and sometimes get confused that it is the country of good cheese and chocolate, not false statements, but they are actually referring to Switzerland.

For cinephiles, you will know Sweden because of Midsommar, Ingmar Bergman cult films and where the last work of Andrei Tarkovsky’s “The Sacrifice” was filmed. For photographers, you will definitely know Hasselblad, the camera for the studios by de facto in the analog era and the one brought to the Apollo mission to take those impressive photos on the Moon. If you like fashion, you will not only know the Fjällräven bags and H&M, which in Swedes pronounce it “WHO EM”, but also Asket, Arket, Acne Studios, Haglöfs, Peak Performance Nudie Jeans and the defunct Cheap Monday.

And people around the world will think that Swedes are those tall, blond, cultured, low-key, and stylish people with blue eyes, although when you go there, it is far more diverse than that. Actually, we must not forget Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite and the founder of the organization that established the Nobel Prizes.

1. Geography

First, let’s put Sweden on the map. It is a European, Scandinavian, and Nordic country. In terms of organizations, it is part of the EU, although it doesn’t have the Euro. It is part of the Nordic Council and recently joined NATO. This section is broken into Europe, Nordics, and Sweden itself.

1.1 Europe

There may be a confusion among people outside Europe and even among Europeans about which countries are part of the EU, EEA, Schengen, or NATO. There are also other organizations related to the EU, such as the Erasmus and Euro.

Some countries, like Andorra and the Vatican City, use the Euro but are not part of the European Union (EU). On the other hand, countries like Czechia, Poland, and Sweden are part of the EU but do not use the Euro. Denmark doesn’t use the Euro, but its currency is closely tied to it.

The EU’s flagship educational initiative is the Erasmus program, which provides numerous students with the opportunity to participate in exchange programs with other countries that are also part of the Erasmus program. Notably, some countries that are not part of the EU are also part of the Erasmus program, such as Turkey and Israel.

The Schengen Area, includes all the EFTA (Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Iceland) and all the EU countries (besides Ireland and Cyprus). The Schengen Area’s primary pillars revolve around the free movement of people for tourism, employment, and other purposes. The agreement that established the Schengen Area was signed in Schengen, Luxembourg, in the 1980s.

Another organization related to Europe is NATO (the North Atlantic Treaty Organization), although Canada and the USA also form part of it. Recently in 2022, NATO has expanded its membership to include Finland and Sweden.

Euro Members

Besides the most known Schengen Area, EEA, and Eurozone, there are also many other supranational bodies in Europe:

Supranational European Bodies

1.2 Nordics

The Nordics are more countries that people will usually think; people I know will usually mention Sweden, Norway, Denmark, and Finland as part of them. But there are more countries and autonomous regions: the Iceland, Faroe Islands and Greenland; the former was part of the Kingdom of Denmark, and the latter autonomous regions of the Kingdom of Denmark. And we can also count the Ålands Islands, a autonomous region of Finland. On top of that, according to some people, we may also add the Baltics (Estonia, Lithuania, and Latvia) to the mix.

Linguistically Finland is different from the other Nordic countries, as it is the only country in the Nordic countries that does not use the Scandinavian languages.

Other organizations related to the Nordics:

1. A subset of the Nordic countries are the Scandinavian countries, which consist of Norway, Sweden and Denmark. Although Denmark is not part of the Scandinavian peninsula.
2. The Arctic Council, a forum including also including Russia, Canada and the USA, focusing on Arctic issues and and their indigenous peoples.
3. The Nordic Council, a parliamentary cooperation organization among the Nordic countries and their autonomous territories.

1.3 Sweden

Illustrated map of Sweden, source: mapsland.com

Here are some informal geo facts:

• Stockholm: The capital and the most populous city of Sweden, with 2.5 million living in the metropolitan area.

• Solna: Is a municipality just outside Stockholm City, well-known as a corporate hub, where many companies have their fiscal or registered office addresses, thanks to its economic and modern office spaces and proximity to the capital center.

• Gotenborg:

• Skåne: Is the southeastern region of Sweden and is the gateway to Continental Europe, connected by road and rails by the famous Öresund bridge. People of other regions of Sweden will sometimes make jokes about the unsafety of that area, being like the Bronx of Sweden.

• Malmö: Is the capital of Skåne and the second largest city in Sweden. Many food-related factories are located here, including many food products from IKEA.

• Nordland: Isn’t officially a region, but Swedes will use it to refer to the northernmost of the three traditional lands of Sweden, known for its beautiful lakes and mountains, and Sami people. It is low-density populated, with only a tenth of the population living there.

• Jämtland: One of the southern provinces of Norrland, but the funny thing is that one time they self-proclaimed being independent and became a national joke.

2. Nature

Where I live up north and close to the Baltic Sea, I will see birch trees all around in the city, some berry plants. In autumn, there will be a massive amount of multicultural mushrooms populating the forest and the sides of the streets.

In winter, most of autumn and spring will be covered in snow, ice, and anything between or mixed. Up north, there are 8 months with snow, although in Stockholm, it is much less. When the snow melts down, it will flourish flowers like there is no tomorrow or even not tonight.

In the summer, it is quite hot indoors as the houses there are meant to work well with freezing climates, and people don’t have aircons.

In the city where I live, the nature is puzzled with the urban areas, so you always have a forest within a few minutes’ walk. They have also an surprisingly immesive bike paths (where also serves as walk paths) even for European standards, that may feel that there are more km than the conventional car roads, in addition there are tons of bridges and tunnels in the intersections between car and bike roads making bikers and walkers don’t even need to worried about cars.

Hours of Light

People go nuts in these topics. The city where I live has a latitude around 64°, so it is almost touching the Arctic Circle (66°30’). When you tell your friends from other countries that you are living close to the Arctic Circle, it may sound fascinating to them. They will think about the Nordic lights, and for sure, the Nordic lights are a gift to see them in person.

3. Inventions and brands

Swedes have made many inventions related to safety, and some may be the opposite. I bet you have used one of these today: a zipper, safety matches, a refrigerator, a seatbelt, a drink using a Tetra Pak, Bluetooth, or Spotify, to name a few.

You may walk in an IKEA, wear H&M clothes, be on a ship that uses propellers, know someone with a pacemaker, or have seen pictures from the first moon landing taken with Hasselblad cameras. You may also have sat in a Volvo car or seen your local café now serving Oatly instead of milk for your latte. You may have listened to ABBA. These all come from Sweden.

Sweden is home to Klarna, the most valued unicorn in Europe.

Postnord

It is the national post company of Sweden and also of Denmark, it was merged by the national post of both countries, in which the Swedish government owns 60% and the Danish counterpart owns 40%.

Fun fact, there isn’t a single post office, at least in a traditional way other countries have, you usually will found them as a “stand” like an infocenter by the supermarkets and the clerk there are the ones they are checking your items in the supermarket.

IKEA

Being one of the bigest and famous brands from Sweden it is still privately owned by the family that founded it. They use 1% of the world woods. Their famous assembly yourself furniture have positive effects on their users’ […].

Spotify

Founded by

Volvo and Saab

Starting by building military […]

Coop

If you have been in Switzreland or Norway you may the same, but in other color. In theory is a cooperative where […]

4. Culture

4.1 Food

From my experience, when you ask people from around the world about the Swedish cuisine, they will think of the meatballs (more specifically from IKEA), and maybe salmon. However, historically, the meatballs are not really from Sweden, they come from the Turkish köfte, it dated back when the King Charles XII of Sweden was in exile in Turkey, and then when he returned to Sweden he took the meatballs, although the Swedish meatballs have a different sauce, as they use gravy and lingonberry jam on top.

Kebab + Jalapeño is a golden combo in this Scandinavian country, often found on wraps and pizzas. It is quite popular here, and you should try it. You can eat it almost any local pizzeria or even buy it in supermarkets.

final boss: pizza kebab with fries and salad on top

Also Max have a their burger version.

A woman working in the Riksdag said that Sweden, although far from the tropics, is the country with the highest banana consumption per capita. […]

Potatoes are one of the most used raw ingredients in Sweden, used in various forms such as baking, frying, smashing, and more. Chips are particularly popular, and a friend once told me that there are two distinct types of Swedes: those who prefer Estrella Chips and those who prefer OLW chips. These are the two most popular Swedish chip brands.

Open sandwiches are common. […]

Swedes love their local produced items, for that the government have created the FRÅN SVERIGE, a voluntary origin label for raw food that are grown or born and raised, processed, packaged and controlled in Sweden. There is also Kött från Sverige and Mjölk från Sverige, which means meat and milk from Sweden.

Meat

10% of Swedes do not eat meat, because of climate and animal rights.

People will think that Swedes eat a lot of sea food, but that may be becasue they confuse it with Norway and their big fishery industry like salmon. Maybe something special in Sweden is Surströmming, a fermented herring, which in Sweden can be traced back to fermented fish to more than 9000 years ago. It went viral on the internet because of its extreme smell, and you should open the can outdoors and under the water and eat it with something else.

Chains

The most famous fast food chain is Max Burguers, the counterpart of the American McDonald’s, although according to them they are the eco and healthy version, as they are carbon-neutral and have all their meat sourced in Sweden. One of their products hard to find in other chains is the Västerbotten Öst sticks, which are, if they make cheese fingers with Parmigiano. For more premium grilled on place burgers, you can try the ones Bastard Burguers, founded by a group of friends in Luleå (Far-north) in 2016 which love food and hip-hop.

In many supremarkets from ICA and Coop you can find a buffet deli thinggy where you can grab yourself whateever you like and then it will be priced by weight.

Bread

For Germans and Danes, the bread in Sweden may not be as varied or as “good”. But there are some breads that I can recommend you can try that are available in the supermarkets, like the Lingongrova, a dark bread made of whole grain, sourdough, and Swedish lingonberries. Also, the tender and sweet and “fragile” [Polarbröd] made from rye in the north of Sweden; they said they freeze the bread immediately after baking. The corn bread/cookies Majskakor, which you can eat like cookies or put something on top like bread. For cookies, you can try the ones from Göteborg. And the famous crispbread Knäckebröd from Wasa.

Swedes love to put lingonberry jam and whipped cream with pancakes.

Here are some favourite Swedish toppings for the bread:

1. Butter: Many Swedes will recommend Arla’s Bregott instead of traditional butter. It is made of rapeseed oil that looks and feels like butter but is even smoother to cut when you take it out of the fridge.

2. Jam: Besides the more common berry types you can find in other countries, you should try the Hjortronsylt (Cloudberry Jam), which is made from a more rare type of berries only found in places close to the Arctic Circle and is only available for a short period of time.

3. Cheese: one of my favorites, is the Västerbottenost, for reference. You can think of it as the Swedish Parmesan, although for bread, you may use other types of milder cheese.

4. Meat […]

Sweets

Yes, Swedes love Sweets, and we need a special section for it.

There is a tradition that on Saturday the kids will buy Goddies a paper bag of assort of weighted candies, that can be bought on their local suppermakret of special store

The liquorrice, and salted liquorice is sacred in Sweden and other nordics countries, some are so salty that tourist will found it unable to even have one bite.

In the swedes stores, besides the international brands of chocolate like Lindt, Milka and Tony’s Chocolonely, they have their commercial national brand called Marabou and Cloetta, for premium chocolate makers they have brands like Malmö Chokladfabrik.

4.2 Drinks

Sweden is one of the countries that drinks more coffee per capita. It is quite normal to drink 4 or 5 cups a day. There are many independent coffee shops, some of them are called bokkafe, which feature tons of books in their walls.

The most popular coffee chains is Espresso House. But in Stockolm the trenddy chain for young pople is Bröd & Salt, something unique is their monthly subscription plans for unlimited coffee and coworking, with prices from 799 SEK ($84/73€) per month.

Here comes the carbohydrated drinks. Ramlösa and Loka, are the Swedish Sprite, but without sugar and its flavoured versions didn’t taste as artificial as Fanta. The swedish Coca Cola is Trocadero, it feels like Coke with Nestea.

I anticipated people to purchase bottled drinks and refill their bottles with tap water, but I was mistaken.

For chocolate milk swedes have Pucko.

We must not forget the numerous flavors and shapes of Oatly products available in Sweden. Usually, in other countries, you can only find the regular and the barista one, but in Sweden, they have yogurt, ice cream, whipped cream, deluxe, which needs to be always in the cooler, and other products. My personal favorite is their cream cheese and the barista. Besides Oatly they also have local brands like Sproud and Oddly Good.

Nocco and are also popular vitamin and energy gym drinks.

[…]

4.3 Design

Font

Clothing

Architecture

Museum

Working

NGO

Myrorna and Red Cross second hand shops

Sports equipment shops like IKSU

5. Life

Cities

Bokkafe

Arch

Housing

Sweden has quite affordable housing compared to other Nordic countries, but the con is you usually need to queue for years to get your turn to rent your place. My friends told me that buying a house is not speculation because it will not really increase its value, nor at least as much as other countries in the world.

Many neighbourhoods have a Commun

Skyddsrum

Although Sweden has not been in a war for over 200 years, they are well prepared. They have bunkers in most buildings, and after joining NATO, they also have American bases in addition.

And here it comes, the Skyddsrum. This may sound like “escape rooms” in Swedish, but in reality, it is a serious business. They are civil defense air raid shelters, mostly found in urban areas. It started to be extensively built back in WWII. With 65,000 registered shelters, they provide shelter for around 70%. There are also some massive shelters, such as the Klara skyddsrum that can host thousands of inhabitants.

Digital ID

Personnummer is the ID number used in Sweden. It is far more handy and useful than in most countries. Many people don’t have a physical ID card; most use their driver’s license. You only need to remember the 12 digits of your number, the first six being your birth date and the latter four the “secret number.”

19570229XXXX

With a personal number, you can see a doctor, sign up for a gym membership or a local library, and get prescriptions at the pharmacy. It can retrieve your personal details when you visit your doctor.

BankID is a way to identify yourself online. For example, when subscribing to a phone carrier, you log in with your BankID, and the carrier gets the details needed to sign up, including your name, birthdate, and address linked to your ID. You can also get prescription drugs from pharmacy websites thanks to BankID identification.

6. People

Swedes

Their English is almost native among Millennials and Gen Z, and quite good among Boomers.

Almost all Master’s degrees are available only in English.

Pronuntiation

1. Challenge – shalensh

2. John Wick – Juooon Uikk

4. fika is God

5. Vitamin, Nocco, Redbull, Ramsola every

Dress code

1. girls always have black-white stripped, jeans man will from toes to nose have black clothes and complements

Hobbies

1. Nature
2. Fika

• A successful life includes: vvv
  1. Have a Volvo
  2. Have a House
  3. Have a Dog

Travel

The majority prefer “beach places” such as the Canary Islands, Thailand, Italy, and Greece (someone appearing in the image of Mama Mia). It is common that small Swedish cities with 100k inhabitants sometimes have direct connections to Bangkok or Gran Canaria.

7. Opinions

Here are some personal experiences, opinions, and people’s knowledge related to an incident that occurred during my stay in the Nordic country.

• An English friend told me that the English language comes from Swedish when the Vikings invaded England.

• A friend told me that, in the past, the government forcibly castrating people with mental and physical disabilities.

• One time I was visiting a private bokkafe, the ones that only opens one day a week and only for two hours, A person from the Swedish Communist Party told me that during WWII, in some part of Umeå, there was a concentration camp.

• In the Parliament Library, I met a person working there who told me about her opposition to Sweden joining NATO, saying that Sweden is going to become a real puppet of the US, and they are US military will be immune to do anything in their will in the within Swedish borders. And the USA are starting to set up many bases which Sweden may not have control

• One late, frozen midnight, around minus 10 degrees, I was helping a friend who was pretending to have a hurt leg walk back home. Suddenly, a voice from behind asked if he was okay. My friend was shaking.

Refer

Here are some good sites to find more info about Sweden:

1. Visit Sweden: the public official site about Sweden

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