Urban areas in Sweden

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The terminology on urban areas in Sweden is notoriously hard to translate to people outside of Scandinavia because they are unique and because some terms are only used for statistical purposes and are not used by laymen. Basically, each of the 26 counties of Sweden is divided into several municipalities (Kommuner). The classifications of municipalities differ. Often towns that have had city rights at one time or another get to be the seat of a municipality and form its name. The municipality consists of the town itself and its adjecent surroundings. Inside the municipality are urban areas of different sizes and the number of inhabitants decide what its proper definition is.

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[edit] Definitions

  • tätort is the centreal concept, and one that is actually commonly agreed on. A tätort is any village, town, or city with a population of at least 200 for which the contiguous built-up area meet the criterion that houses are not more than 200 meters apart when discounting rivers, parks, roads, etc. A tätort may be a conurbation of several towns. Tätort is sometimes translated to "urban area", although below the translation "non-rural area" is preferred.
  • småort is a concept, lesser known outside of the field of statistics, for settlements just below the limit to be defined as tätort. It is defined as a contiguous built-up area with no more than 150 meters between houses and 50–199 inhabitants. In a bureaucratic mindset, a småort is rural. In a rural mindset, this is not necessarily so.
  • fritidshusområde is in statistical context an area with less than 50 permanent inhabitants but at least 50 houses (in practice: weekend cottages/summer houses) meeting the criterion that they are not more than 150 metres apart. About a third of Sweden's "second homes" are located in such areas. The term belongs also to everyday usage, althouh less strictly defined, and with somewhat negative connotations.
  • by is the standard term for village and hamlet, but may in some contexts, notably for Scania, be used for suburbs and towns of considerable size. If at all used in the context of statistics, it must be assumed that the size of a by is smaller than that of a småort. (NB! Not to be confused with the same word in Danish and Norwegian that means town/city.)
  • centralort is mostly used in the meaning municipal seat or (municipal) center of service, commerce and administration for an area. In a historical context, centralort may be seen used interchangeably with tingsplats, i.e. the site of the ting of a hundred or of a historical province.
  • huvudort is rarely used for seats of local government, i.e. specifically a municipal seat.
  • samhälle is a much used concept whose concrete meaning is a locality in size and importance intermediary between that of a town and a that of a village. Confusingly, the term is also used abstractly to mean "society", "community", or even "state". (Compare: Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft.) A samhälle does not necessarily meet the criteria for tätort — not even for småort.
  • municipalsamhälle is a dated term no longer used outside of historical contexts. Its meaning was in effect similar to that of centralort, but governmentally applied only to localities that weren't towns or market towns.
  • köping is a term that since 1971 is abolished in governmental and statistical contexts, and only rarely kept in use by laymen, although it has survived as part of the names of several towns. The meaning was a locality with an intermediary legal status below that of a town, i.e. a market town.
  • stad is the Swedish term for towns and cities. In a context of statistics, it may be restricted to towns with a population greater than 10,000, which is a restriction counter-intuitive to most Swedes. Judicially, the term is obsolete since 1971, but the term is still in common use.
  • förstad and förort are much used terms for suburb.
  • storstad is the nearest translation for the concept of city. There exists no specific criterion for its definition, but many Swedes would agree that a storstad has to be the center of a metropolitan area. It ought to be kept in mind that a distinction between town and city is really not made in Swedish. "Storstad" means literally "large town". Statistics Sweden count Stockholm, Göteborg(Gothenburg), Sundsvall and Malmö as "storstad".

The municipalities of Sweden are administrative units containing rural, suburban and urban areas. In practice, most references in Sweden are to municipalities, not specifically to towns or cities, which complicates international comparisons.

When comparing the population of different cities, the urban area ("tätort") population is to prefer for the population of the municipality. The population of e.g. Stockholm should be accounted as ~1.2 million rather than the ~750,000 of the municipality, and Lund rather ~75,000 than ~100,000.

[edit] Statistics

Data are computed by Statistics Sweden every five years. The latest data are as of December 31, 2000. Then the total population of the non-rural areas in Sweden was 7,464,861 on an area of 5,210.373 km², which gives an average population density of 1,433/km².

Comparative figures for the entire country was: 8,882,792/410,335.40 km² = 22/km².

  • 84% of the Swedish population lives in non-rural areas (i.e. in tätorts).
  • 50% lives in the 64 largest urban areas.
  • A third lives in the 15 largest urban areas, and
  • A quarter lives in the 5 largest.
  • The largest and most populous urban area is Stockholm.


[edit] The largest urban areas

Urban area Area¹ Population Density² County
Stockholm UA 375.249 1,212,196 3,230 Stockholm
Gothenburg UA 198.778 495,849 2,494 Västra Götaland
Malmö UA 69.335 248,520 3,584 Skåne
Uppsala 47.709 124,036 2,600 Uppsala
Västerås 51.165 102,548 2,004 Västmanland
Örebro 42.619 95,354 2,237 Örebro
Linköping 41.183 94,248 2,253 Östergötland
Helsingborg 36.903 87,914 2,382 Skåne
Norrköping 34.545 82,744 2,395 Östergötland
Jönköping 44.181 81,732 1,842 Jönköping
Lund 24.578 73,840 3,004 Skåne
Umeå 33.686 70,955 2,106 Västerbotten
Gävle 41.577 67,856 1,632 Gävleborg
Borås 29.433 61,929 2,104 Västra Götaland
Södertälje 24.656 59,342 2,407 Stockholm
Eskilstuna 29.627 57,867 1,953 Södermanland
Täby 25.778 57,834 2,244 Stockholm
Karlstad 29.618 56,480 1,907 Värmland
Halmstad 32.336 53,487 1,654 Halland
Växjö 28.506 51.790 1,817 Kronoberg
remarks
  1. km²
  2. Population per km²

[edit] The most densely populated areas

tätort Area Population Density County remarks
Fisksätra 1.01 7,185 7,097 Stockholm (1)
Malmö UA 69.34 248,520 3,584 Skåne  
Stockholm UA 375.25 1,212,196 3,230 Stockholm  
Sjöberg 1.37 4,219 3,084 Stockholm (1)
Vaxholm 1.60 4,887 3,046 Stockholm  
Märsta 7.29 22,121 3,036 Stockholm  
Lund 24.58 73,840 3,004 Skåne  
Oxie 3.18 9,242 2,910 Skåne (2)
Älta 3.27 9,165 2,803 Stockholm (1)
Burlövs egnahem 0.21 555 2,697 Skåne (2)
remarks
  1. suburb of Stockholm
  2. suburb of Malmö

[edit] Towns divided by municipality borders

Some urban areas are divided by municipal borders. 15 of these are municipal seats, though only two urban areas works as seats of several municipalities: Stockholm and Gothenburg. These include:

[edit] See also

[edit] External links

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