Swedes

Swedish people
Svenskar

Bridget of Sweden • Anders Celsius • Carl Linnaeus • Alfred Nobel Selma Lagerlöf • Dag Hammarskjöld • Greta Garbo • Astrid Lindgren Ingmar Bergman • Björn Ulvaeus • Carl Sandburg • Annika Sörenstam
Total population
Est. 8 million Also more than 5.3 million people of Swedish ancestry
Regions with significant populations
Sweden:      7,700,000 (2009 est.)[1] Other significant population centers: Swedish citizens/Swedish speakers
Spain 65,000[2]  United States 56,324[3]  Norway 28 730[4]  United Kingdom 22,525[5]  Denmark 21,000[6]  Germany 9,500[5]  Finland 9,000  Australia 8,170[7]  Canada 7,000[8]  Brazil 2000 (est.)  Argentina 800[9]  Mexico 425  Estonia 300[10] Other regions 72,000[11] Persons with Swedish ancestry  United States 4,325,000[12]  Canada 334,765[13]  Australia 30,375[14]  New Zealand 1,257[15] Swedish-speaking Finns/Finland-Swedes  Finland ~280,000 [16]
Languages
Swedish Related languages include Norwegian, Danish, Faroese, Icelandic, and to a lesser extent, other Germanic languages
Religion
Historically Norse paganism, Christianity (Mainly Lutheranism) and more recently Secularism. Also see Religion in Sweden.
Related ethnic groups
Danes, Norwegians, Icelanders, Faroese, English. Other Germanic ethnic groups

Swedes (Swedish: svenskar) are a Scandinavian people, mostly inhabiting Sweden and the other Nordic countries, with descendants living in a number of countries.

Until the 9th century, the Scandinavian people lived in small Germanic kingdoms and chiefdoms known as petty kingdoms.^[17] The Germanic tribe of the Swedes (Swedish: svear; Old Norse: svíar) lived in Svealand, bordering the Geats to the south. The consolidation of Sweden was a long process, and later, as Sweden's borders fluctuated over the centuries, so did the use of the Swedish language as well as Swedish self-identification.

The Swedish-speaking minority in Finland (finlandssvenskar) trace back to the many centuries when Finland was an integral part of Sweden. Their identity and relation towards Swedish and Finnish identities is a subject of discussion.^[18][19][20] Other groups have acquired Swedish identity; until 1658, when Scania became a possession of the Swedish Crown, the Scanians were a people of the Eastern Province of Denmark speaking a dialect belonging to the East-Danish dialect group.^[21] Similarly, groups like the Walloons settled in Sweden already in the 17th century, followed by many other groups in later periods. There are also several million people with Swedish ancestry in the United States and Canada following the large-scale emigration of the late 19th and early 20th century.

Contents 1 Geography 2 Origin 3 Famous Swedes 4 Swedish Descendants and Swedish speakers outside of Sweden 4.1 In Finland 4.2 In Estonia and Ukraine 4.3 In North America 4.4 Other 5 See also 6 References 7 External links

Geography

The largest area inhabited by Swedes, as well as the earliest known original area inhabited by their linguistic ancestors, is in the country of Sweden, situated on the eastern side of the Scandinavian Peninsula and the islands adjacent to it, situated west of the Baltic Sea in northern Europe. The Swedish-speaking people living in near-coastal areas on the north-eastern and eastern side of the Baltic Sea also have a long history of continuous settlement, which in some of these areas possibly started about a millennium ago. These people include the Swedish-speakers in mainland Finland – speaking Swedish dialect commonly referred as Finland Swedish (finlandssvenska which is part of East-Swedish dialect group) and the almost exclusively Swedish-speaking population of the Åland Islands speaking in a manner closer to the adjacent dialects in Sweden than to adjacent dialects of Finland Swedish. Estonia also had an important Swedish minority until the 20th century. Smaller groups of historical descendants of 18th–20th-century Swedish emigrants who still retain varying aspects of Swedish identity to this day can be found in the Americas (especially Minnesota and Wisconsin, see Swedish Americans) and in Ukraine.

Currently, Swedes tend to emigrate mostly to the Nordic neighbour countries (Norway, Denmark, Finland), English speaking countries (USA, UK), Spain and Germany.^[22]

Historically, the Kingdom of Sweden has been much larger than nowadays, especially during "The Era of Great Power" (Swedish Empire) in 1611–1718. Finland belonged to Sweden until 1809. Since there was no separate Finnish nationality at those times, it is not unusual that sources predating 1809 refer both to Swedes and Finns as "Swedes". This is particularly the case with New Sweden, where some of the "Swedish" settlers were actually of Finnish origin.

Origin

The ancient Germanic tribe of the Suiones, sometimes called Svear in academic works, were at the roots of Swedish statehood and contemporary with the Geats and the Daner in Scandinavia. The Roman bureaucrat and historian, Jordanes mentions in his work "Scandza" that these tribes are "the tallest of all men". He later mentions other Scandinavian tribes as being of the same height. He also mentions that the Swedes outmatched the others in class: "Suetidi, cogniti in hac gente reliquis corpore eminentiores". Notably, in modern Scandinavian languages, with the exception of Icelandic, there is a distinction between svenskar and svear (as between danskar and Daner), since the latter term does not include the Geats and the Gotlanders and whose descendants became a part of the Swedish ethnicity.

According to recent genetic analysis, both mtDNA and Y chromosome polymorphisms showed a noticeable genetic affinity between Swedes and central Europeans, especially Germans (conclusions also valid for Norwegians).^[23] For the global genetic make-up of the Swedish people and other peoples (see also ^[24] and ^[25]). In haplogroup diversity found today, the Swedes show to be mostly of heterogeneous origins, that means they are a strongly hybrid people. Among Mitochondrial haplogroups the Swedes are in matrilineage strongly of haplogroup H in a 25-30%,followed by haplogroup U at a 10% or more,with haplogroup J and T, K at around 5% each one.In Patrilineage through the Y haplogroups of their DNA , the Swedes are most diverse and strongly of Haplogroup I in over 40% of the population tested in different studies,followed by haplogroup R1b and R1a with over 20% each one and haplogroup N with over 5% at different regional variance. The rest are among haplogroups J and E1b1b1 and other less common ones.^[26] Another detailed nuclear genetic study has also implied that Swedes largely share genetics with Finns.^[27]

Famous Swedes

Swedes of international renown include

• Gustavus Adolphus, Dag Hammarskjöld and Carl Bildt
• film directors: Ingmar Bergman and Victor Sjöström
• actors: Greta Garbo, Stellan Skarsgård, Alexander Skarsgård, Maud Adams, Ingrid Bergman, Dolph Lundgren, Peter Stormare, Erland Josephson and Max von Sydow
• entrepreneurs: Gustaf Dalén, Lars Magnus Ericsson, Bertil Hult, Gustav de Laval, Ingvar Kamprad, Ivar Kreuger, Anders Winroth, Alfred Nobel, Erling Persson, Ruben Rausing, Axel Wenner-Gren and Niklas Zennström
• musicians: Yngwie Malmsteen, In Flames, Kent, Mikael Wiehe, Sabaton, Opeth, Pelle Almqvist, Björn Ulvaeus, Benny Andersson, Agnetha Fältskog, Jussi Björling, Robyn, Birgit Nilsson, Charlotte Perrelli, Neneh Cherry, Per Gessle, Jenny Lind and Nina Persson
• scientists: Hannes Alfvén, Arvid Carlsson, Carl Linnaeus, Alfred Nobel, Carl Wilhelm Scheele, Kai Siegbahn and Anders Jonas Ångström
• sportspeople: Peter Forsberg, Henrik Larsson, Daniel Sedin, Henrik Sedin, Henrik Zetterberg, Carolina Klüft, Björn Borg, Jesper Parnevik, Fredrik Ljungberg, Lennart Skoglund, Olof Mellberg, Ingemar Stenmark, Mats Sundin, Annika Sörenstam, Henrik Stenson, Sven Tumba, Jan-Ove Waldner and Mats Wilander and Magnus Samuelsson.
• writers:Selma Lagerlöf, Vilhelm Moberg, August Strindberg, Astrid Lindgren and Hjalmar Söderberg

Swedish Descendants and Swedish speakers outside of Sweden

In Finland

The Swedish-speaking Finns or Finland-Swedes form a minority group in Finland. The characteristic of this minority is debated: while some see it as an ethnic group of its own ^[28] some view it purely as a linguistic minority.^[29] The group includes about 265,000 people, comprising 5.10% of the population of mainland Finland, or 5.50 %^[30] if the 26,000 inhabitants of Åland are included (there are also about 60,000 Swedish-speaking Finns currently resident in Sweden). It has been presented that the ethnic group can also perceived as distinct Swedish-speaking nationality in Finland.^[31] There are also 9,000 Swedish citizens living in Finland.^[32]

In Estonia and Ukraine

The presence of Swedish speaking permanent residents in what is now Estonia (Estonia-Swedes) was first documented in the 14th century, and possibly dates back to the Viking Age. There were an estimated 12,000 Swedes resident in Estonia in 1563 . Estonia was under Swedish rule 1558–1710, after which the territory was ceded to Russia in the 1721 Treaty of Nystad. In 1781, 1,300 Estonia-Swedes of the island of Hiiumaa (Dagö) were forced to move to New Russia (today Ukraine) by Catherine II of Russia, where they formed Gammalsvenskby (Old Swedish Village). According to the 1934 census there were 7,641 Estonia-Swedes (Swedish speaking, 0.7% of the population in Estonia), making Swedes the third largest national minority in Estonia, after Russians and Germans. During World War II almost the entire community of Estonia-Swedes fled to Sweden. Today there are, at most, a few hundred Estonia-Swedes living in Estonia and a few hundred in Ukraine, with the estimates varying widely depending on who identifies, or can be identified, as a Swede. Many of them are living in northwestern mainland Estonia and on adjacent islands and on the island of Ruhnu (Runö) in the Gulf of Riga.

In a nationalist context, the ethnic Swedes living outside Sweden are sometimes called 'East-Swedes' (in Swedish: östsvenskar), to distinguish them from the ethnic Swedes living in Sweden proper, called rikssvenskar or västsvenskar ('Western-Swedes'), reflecting irredentist sentiments.

In North America

There are numerous Swedish descendants in places like the US and Canada (i.e. Swedish Americans and Swedish Canadians), including some who still speak Swedish.

The majority of the early Swedish immigrants to Canada came via the United States. It wasn't until after 1880 that significant numbers of Swedes immigrated to Canada. From WWI onwards, almost all of the Swedish immigrants entered Canada coming directly from Sweden. In addition to Swedish immigrants from south-central part of Sweden, a relatively large number of Swedish immigrants came from Stockholm and northern Sweden. The newcomers played an important role in the development of the Canadian prairies.

Swedish Canadians can be found in all parts of the country. Many Swedish social, cultural, political, business and welfare organizations, both religious and secular, can be found in all major Canadian cities and some of the smaller towns and rural communities. Some of the Swedish traditions, such as Midsummer, Walpurgis, and St Lucia are still celebrated by the community today.^[33]

Other

The Varangians, Vikings mostly from Sweden, were instrumental in the formation of the first Russian state. These Vikings called "Rus" (because of their origin from Roslagen) were described by the Arabic traveller Ibn Fadlan: "I have seen the Rus as they came on their merchant journeys and encamped by the Itil. I have never seen more perfect physical specimens, tall as date palms, blond and ruddy".

Swedish soldiers taken prisoner during the Great Northern War were sent in considerable numbers to Siberia. They numbered perhaps 25 % of the population of Tobolsk, the capital of Siberia, and some settled permanently. There are also Swedes located in St Petersburg, Russia and in Siberia.

See also

• List of Swedes
• Sweden
• Swedish diaspora

References

External links

• The Global Etiquette Guide: Sweden
• VisitSweden - Sweden's official website for tourism and travel information (English)