In 2023, approximately 988,943 people lived in Stockholm, making it not only the capital, but also the biggest city in Sweden. The second biggest city, Gothenburg (Göteborg) had about half as many inhabitants, with about 596,840 people. Move to the citySweden is a country with a very high urbanization rate, the likes of which is usually only seen in countries with large uninhabitable areas, such as Australia, or in nations with very little rural landscape and agrarian structures, like Cuba. So why do so few Swedes live in rural areas, even though based on total area, the country is one of the largest in Europe? The total population figures are the answer to this question, as Sweden has only about 10.3 million inhabitants as of 2018 – that’s only 25 inhabitants per square kilometer. Rural exodus or just par for the course?It is no mystery why most Swedes flock to the cities: Jobs, of course. Over 65 percent of Sweden’s gross domestic product is generated by the services sector, and agriculture only contributes about one percent to the GDP. Employment mirrors this, with 80 percent of the workforce being deployed in services, namely in foreign trade, telecommunications, and manufacturing, among other industries.

Of the total population in Sweden of 10.55 million people, around half resided in the counties Stockholm, Västra Götaland or Skåne. This is also the three counties where the three largest cities in Sweden, Stockholm, Göteborg, and Malmö, are located. In the capital region Stockholm county, there lived nearly 2.5 million inhabitants in 2023. Västra Götaland county had close to 1.8 million inhabitants, while Skåne county, the southernmost region, had roughly 1.4 million inhabitants. The island Gotland had the lowest number of inhabitants with only 60,000.

The highest population density

Stockholm, Skåne and Västra Götaland were also the three counties in Sweden with the highest population density. In 2022, 374.6 inhabitants per square kilometer lived in Stockholm county, while the corresponding figures for Skåne and Västra Götaland were 129 and 73.9, respectively.

The highest rents

Unsurprisingly. Stockholm county is the county in Sweden with the highest rents for rented dwellings, with average prices for one square meter amounting to over 1,400 Swedish kronor in 2022. The lowest average renting prices were in the northwestern region Jämtland, one square meter costing 1,000 Swedish kronor.

Stockholm was ranked as the best city for startups in Sweden in 2023, with a total score of *****. Malmö followed in second with a score of ****, followed by Gothenburg. That year, Sweden was ranked as the second best country for startups in Europe and the fifth best worldwide.

The aim of this study is to throw light on why inequality in the distribution of income in Sweden fell from the mid-1920s to the second part of the 1950s. For this reason the project decided to collect income information referring to different years from a sample of households for one Swedish city. A database was created by coding tax records and other documents for the city of Göteborg, the second largest city in Sweden.

The determination of which years to investigate was critical. For analysing changes over time it was thought as essential to have roughly equal numbers of years between years studied. Further, it was thought advisable to avoid years with too much macroeconomic turmoil as well as the years of the two World Wars. Balancing the resources for the data collection between the size of a sub sample and the number of subsamples, it was decided to assemble data for four years. The years 1925, 1936, 1947 and 1958 was chosen to investigate. It should be pointed out that the year 1947 was preferred to the following years as large social insurance reforms leading to increases in pension benefits and the introduction of child allowances were put in effect in 1948.

Household is defined from registers kept in the archives (Mantalslängder). A household is defined as persons with the same surname living in the same apartment or single-family house. This means that there can be people belonging to more than two generations in the same household; siblings living together can make up a household as well. Foster children are included as long as they are registred at the same address. Adult children are considered to be living in the household of their parents as long as they are registred at the same address. In almost all cases, servants and tenants not belonging to the household are treated as separate households.

In Sweden, the Region of Stockholm had the highest number of police officers in 2022. This comes as no surprise as this is also the most populous of the regions. The regions South and West, where the second and third largest cities Malmö and Gothenburg are located, had the second highest number of police officers. In total, there were nearly 22,000 police officers in Sweden that year.

Russia is the largest country in Europe, and also the largest in the world, its total size amounting to 17 million square kilometers (km2). It should be noted, however, that over three quarters of Russia is located in Asia, and the Ural mountains are often viewed as the meeting point of the two continents in Russia; nonetheless, European Russia is still significantly larger than any other European country. Ukraine, the second largest country on the continent, is only 603,000 km2, making it about 28 times smaller than its eastern neighbor, or seven times smaller than the European part of Russia. France is the third largest country in Europe, but the largest in the European Union. The Vatican City, often referred to as the Holy Sea, is both the smallest country in Europe and in the world, at just one km2. Population Russia is also the most populous country in Europe. It has around 144 million inhabitants across the country; in this case, around three quarters of the population live in the European part, which still gives it the largest population in Europe. Despite having the largest population, Russia is a very sparsely populated country due to its size and the harsh winters. Germany is the second most populous country in Europe, with 83 million inhabitants, while the Vatican has the smallest population. Worldwide, India and China are the most populous countries, with approximately 1.4 billion inhabitants each. Cities Moscow in Russia is ranked as the most populous city in Europe with around 13 million inhabitants, although figures vary, due to differences in the methodologies used by countries and sources. Some statistics include Istanbul in Turkey* as the largest city in Europe with its 15 million inhabitants, bit it has been excluded here as most of the country and parts of the city is located in Asia. Worldwide, Tokyo is the most populous city, with Jakarta the second largest and Delhi the third.

People between 25 and 34 years made up the largest age group in the Swedish Capital of Stockholm in 2022. There were nearly 180,000 people of this age living in the city. 35 to 44-year-old people made up the second largest age group. In total, there were 984,748 people living in Stockholm that year.

As of the fall semester of 2023, Stockholm University was the largest university in Sweden in terms of registered students. 37,000 students were registered at the university in the Swedish capital. The University of Gothenburg was the second largest, followed by Uppsala University. 383,000 students were registered at universities and other higher education institutions in Sweden in 2023. Stockholm University is ranked among the world’s top 100 universities. High share of the population with higher education degrees A high number of the Swedish population has a higher education. This goes especially for women, where almost 30 percent has a post-secondary education of three years or more. The share of men with this is just below 20 percent. Long tradition of state financial aid Swedish residents who are studying can apply for student grants, and loans with a low interest rate. Over 200,000 students in Sweden received both subsidies and loans in 2021. Furthermore, students in Sweden do not have to pay tuition fees.

Most of the job openings in Sweden are located in the capital Stockholm. In the last quarter of 2023, there were around 26,000 job openings available in Stockholm. The number of job openings in Stockholm was at its lowest in the second quarter of 2020 after the outbreak of COVID-19. West Sweden had the second highest number of job openings in the last quarter of 2023. The lowest number of job openings were registered in the sparsely populated region Central Norrland.