Moving to Sweden – What to Bring
Moving to Sweden – The Swedish Language
Moving to Sweden – Finding a Place to Live
Moving to Sweden – The Metric System and You
Moving to Sweden – Getting a Cell Phone
Moving to Sweden – Getting from the Airport to Stockholm City
Moving to Sweden - The Weather
Moving to Sweden - Swedish Citizenship Test
Moving to Sweden - Public Holidays
Moving to Sweden - Finding a Job
Moving to Sweden - Culture Shock: It's the Little Things
Moving to Sweden - Making Friends
Moving to Sweden - Cost of Living
Now it’s time for something much more basic. Facts about Sweden. If you’re going to live here, you might as well know a bit about the country. It’s not always exciting, but it can be helpful nonetheless. And if nothing else, you can impress some Swede with your knowledge about the number of islands in the country. If you want more information check out the CIA World Factbook or Statistiska Centralbyrån.
Government and
Society
Sweden is a constitutional monarchy. The current king, King
Carl XVI Gustaf and his heir apparent, the Crown Princess Victoria have
absolutely no power. They are figureheads. Instead, the country is governed as
a social democracy by the prime minister of the Riksdag (the Swedish parliament
which has 349 seats), currently Fredrik Reinfeldt.
The military is now a completely voluntary force and Sweden
maintains a politcy of neutrality (although they do take part in so-called “peace
keeping missions”). This change was put into place on July 1, 2010 and replaced
conscription. Of course, conscription did not include every single person. When
I moved to Sweden they sent me not one, but two, letters telling me that they
did not want me to join the Swedish military.
The official language of Sweden is Swedish, although there
are several minority languages. These include (in alphabetical order): Finnish,
Meänkieli, Romani, Sami, and Yiddish.
There are just over 9.5 million people living in Sweden and
99% of them can read (or at least those 15 and over. Come on now.). If you
happen to be Swedish, you’ve got a good chance of living for quite some time.
To start with, the infant mortality rate is less than .003% and the maternal
mortality rate is even smaller at .00004%. If you manage to get through birth,
the average life expectancy of men is about 79 years of age, whereas women live
to be almost 84.
Economy
The country is a mixed-market economy meaning there are
plenty of private enterprises as well as state controlled enterprises (the most
(in)famous being Systembolaget, which is the only place in the country to
legally buy strong alcohol). Sweden, while a member of the European Union, does
not use the Euro. Instead, they continue to use the Swedish krona (SEK). In
recent years they have done away with the 50 öre piece (essentially the 50 cent
piece) and now the smallest coin available is the one krona.
Despite the country emerging in a much better position than
many other European countries during the most recent economic crisis (2.3%
growth in GDP in the last reported quarter for example), unemployment is a huge
problem for people between the ages of 15 and 24. SCB reports that as of June
of 2012 the youth unemployment rate was 28.3% and that the overall unemployment
rate was 8.8%.
VAT in Sweden is at a standard 25% (although there are a
couple of exceptions – food being the most notable). The average local income
tax rate was right around 31%, but can be as high as about 57%. For more, Deloitte
has a lovely little factsheet on this.
Geography (SCB has a
great PDF
on Swedish geography!)
Sweden is big. Not USA big, but California big, which
actually makes it one of the largest countries in Europe. It’s about 174,000
square miles (or by European measurements, 450295 square kilometers). Sweden if
flat. Not Kansas flat, but still flat. That being said, Sweden does boast
Kebnekaise which is nearly 7,000 feet high (2,111 meters). There are a
ridiculous number of lakes in Sweden (like 100,000ish) and the three largest
are Vänern, Vättern, and Mälaren. There are even 221,800 islands in Sweden
(which I just think is impressive).
Is there more to say? Absoutely. But this is starting to
feel too much like an elementary school country report. So feel free to include
anything I might have missed in the comments below.
Welcome to Sweden. And a conversation starter.
Welcome to Sweden. And a conversation starter.
For those looking to move to Sweden, or maybe just take a nice vacation. You should probably know that Sweden is fairly far north, and depending on when you come, you could experience some crazy (read: infuriating) lighting. In the winter, there could be only a few hours of sunlight per day, and the summer could be light basically all day. Plan accordingly (read: bring blinds).
ReplyDeleteI live in Alaska - so your comment about bringing blinds made me giggle.
ReplyDeleteI have to say that I love this blog and am glad that you are both writing it now.
I would love to visit Sweden someday - but I'm almost positive that I would NEVER be able to get my mouth around some of those letters LOL
So, thank you for blogging and I look forward to more of your adventures!
I've never been to Alaska, but I imagine there are quite a few similarities, not just the need for blinds (although, I will say that over the years Ive become quite adept at sleeping with quite a bit of light streaming in).
ReplyDeleteI've heard that there are quite a few similarities between Northern Sweden and Alaska.
ReplyDeleteWon't know until I finally make it there ;)
I've never been to Alaska, but have heard the same
ReplyDelete