The Klippan Sofa is a popular model of sofa manufactured and sold by IKEA. Klippan means "the Cliff" in Swedish. (IKEA's nomenclature conventions name upholstered furniture after places in Sweden. This sofa is named after Klippan Municipality in Southern Sweden).[1][2] It was first sold in 1979 and recently celebrated its 30th birthday [3] and continues to be one of IKEA's most popular and longstanding products. It comes in a standard two-seat size (which fits easily through standard house doorways), and can be fitted with a range of removable and interchangeable fabric covers. As well as standard cotton covers, IKEA sells 'exclusive' collections of covers, retiring designs after a year.
The only changes over the years have been the legs; earlier incarnations were painted wood. Contemporary Klippan legs are made from aluminum.
In 2003, the Klippan was used as the standard sofa in a test to compare the British fire safety requirements against the Swedish and mainland European safety requirements. Three Klippans were used, one with no flame retardant treatment, one treated with phosphorus-based flame retardant, and one treated with bromine-based flame retardant. All three sofas were specially manufactured by IKEA in its workshops at Älmhult.[4]