Sweden Geography & Climate

Sweden stretches from 55° to 69° north, which is why its southern and northern ends have little in common. The south, Skåne, is flat, fertile and agricultural, and looks toward Denmark across the Öresund.

The middle is lake country — Vänern and Vättern are the largest in the EU — and the great forest belt that covers around two-thirds of the country.

The Stockholm archipelago holds roughly 30,000 islands, skerries and rocks, formed as the land rebounds from the weight of the last ice sheet; it is still rising several millimetres a year.

The northwest rises into the Scandinavian Mountains along the Norwegian border, with Kebnekaise at around 2,100 metres. The far north lies inside the Arctic Circle.

Woodland, lake and shield

More than half of Sweden is forest, mostly pine and spruce growing on thin soil over the ancient granite and gneiss of the Baltic Shield, and the country holds close to 100,000 lakes — hollows gouged by the ice sheet and never drained. Vanern is the largest lake in the European Union.

Long and narrow

Sweden runs around 1,570 kilometres from the Danish sound to the Finnish border above the Arctic Circle, which is why the same country contains beech woods and oak in the south and subarctic tundra and reindeer herding in the north. The mountains along the Norwegian border rise to just over 2,000 metres.

Land still rising

Freed of the weight of the ice sheet, the land is still rebounding — by as much as a centimetre a year around the northern Baltic. Harbours have become inland, new islands have appeared within recorded history, and the Stockholm archipelago’s roughly 30,000 islands are the most visible product of the same process.

Sweden is far milder than its latitude implies, thanks to the Gulf Stream and the Baltic. Stockholm averages around -1°C in January and 18-22°C in July.

The north is a different climate: subarctic, with reliable deep snow from November to April and temperatures well below -20°C inland.

The south has mild wet winters with little lasting snow, which surprises visitors expecting a uniformly frozen country.

Daylight is the real variable: around 18 hours of light in Stockholm at midsummer against six in December, and above the Arctic Circle the midnight sun in summer and polar night in winter.

Summers have become hot and dry enough in recent years for serious wildfires and widespread fire bans.

Milder than its latitude

Sweden lies at the latitude of Alaska and Siberia but is warmed by Atlantic air, so the south is temperate and the Baltic coast far gentler than the map suggests. Stockholm averages around minus 2°C in January and 18 to 22°C in July.

North and south

The difference along the country’s length is the main thing to plan around. The south has short mild winters and snow that does not always last; the north has deep, reliable snow from November to April, temperatures well below minus 20°C, and a proper subarctic winter.

Light

The great seasonal variable. Above the Arctic Circle the sun does not set for weeks around midsummer and does not rise for weeks in winter. Even in Stockholm midsummer gives barely any true darkness and December gives around six hours of thin daylight, which is why Swedes treat the summer months and the midsummer holiday with the seriousness they do.

When to go

June to August for light and warmth; February and March in the north for snow with returning daylight.