Sweden

Sweden is characterized by its long coastlines, large forests and numerous lakes.

Sweden is one of the countries on earth located furthest from the Equator.

Did you know that 53% of Sweden is covered by forest.

In theory, each Swede has an average of no less than 50,000 square meters of land at his/her "disposal."

Lapland has 100 days a year of midnight sun.

More than one third of the moose in Europe are in Sweden.

With his Systema naturae, Linnaeus is considered perhaps the most important forerunner of Darwin and his theory of the origin of species.

Much of the unique features of Sweden's scenery are traces of the "inland ice," which covered the entire Scandinavian peninsula some 10,000 years ago.

King Gustav III (1746-92) enriched our cultural life by opening Sweden to French and Continental culture. He was assassinated at a masked ball, an event on which Verdi based an opera.

Sweden's Annika Sörenstam is the women's golf equivalent of Tiger Woods, with a record-breaking 50 LPGA victories.

The colorfully painted Dala horse - from Dalecarlia is Sweden's best known national symbol.

In the remarkably male-dominated world of interior and product design, Sweden is the first country to see the emergence of a new generation of designers where women are in a clear majority.

Sweden is the only country where the dominant color of countryside houses is red. The original red nuance of the typical cottage comes from a byproduct of the old copper mine in Falun.

The largest immigrant groups in Sweden are from Finland and other neighboring countries.

In the Sami language, Sami means human being. Sápmi refers both to the land of the Sami and the people who live in it. The Sami also call themselves "the people of the sun and the wind."

Sami (Lapp), Finnish, Meänkieli (Tornedalen Finnish), Yiddish and Romani Chib (a Gypsy language) have official status as minority languages in Sweden.

Crown Princess Victoria (born 1977) is Europe's only female heir to a throne.

Our cherished Swedish "ordinariness" made headlines when pictures of then-Prime Minister Thorbjörn Fälldin washing his socks in the sink of his rented room in Stockholm were broadcast around the world.

The Swedish capital, Stockholm, is substantially less expensive to live in than such cities as Oslo, Hong Kong, Tokyo, New York and Zürich.