• Main Authors: Egon Jonsson, H. David Banta
• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Subjects: Arctic; Greenland; Long Mountain; midnight sun
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.117.1474; http://www.princeton.edu/~ota/disk1/1995/9562/956209.PDF

sweden is the largest Scandinavian country, similar in size to California, with 8.7 million people concentrated mainly in the coastal regions and the south. Sweden is 1,500 miles long, and its northern part is above the Arctic Circle. Stockholm (the capital) is on the east coast roughly midway between north and south at the level of southern Greenland. Because of the Gulf Stream, the climate at this level of Sweden is relatively mild. The second-largest Swedish city, Goteborg, is situated further south on the west coast. Winter snowfall in the southern part of the country is moderate, but the north has a severe winter climate dominated by snow and dark days. Northern summers have 24 hours of daylight and the famous midnight sun. Sweden’s countryside is dotted with about 100,000 lakes, and forest covers about half the surface of the country. The north is dominated by a long mountain range, while southern Sweden is rather flat. The Swedish population is relatively homogeneous; however, there are almost 1 million immigrants living in Sweden, of whom the great majority are Finns, Yugoslavs, and Greeks. Immigration accounted for 45 percent of the total population increase between 1944 and 1980. Every eighth child born in Sweden today is of foreign extraction, and foreign nationals constitute 5 percent of the workforce. The Economy Despite Sweden’s size and geographic diversity, it is largely urban and highly industrialized. Agriculture provided employment for 80 percent of the population 100 years ago, but now accounts for only about 3 percent of the labor force. Eighty-three percent of