Sweden is the EU's third largest country in terms of size. Its10 million inhabitants live mostly in urban areas in the
south, which leaves the forested north pretty empty. Except of course for the abundant wildlife like moose, reindeer, wolves
and wolverines
Humans arrived in the south from central europe as early as 12000 years ago, at the end of the last Ice Age.
The
Sami people populated north Scandinavia from Finland. Their origins are unknown, but genetics point to East Europe or even Asia.
During
the Viking Age the Swedes were known as Rus, and they followed the
Dniepr river south to the Black Sea, laid seige to mighty
Constantinopel and explored the Middle East all the way to Bagdad.
First records of the
kingdom of Sweden are from
the end of the 10th century. Over the ages there was a lot of interference and common ground with Denmark, Norway and Finnland.
During
the 17th century the
Swedish Empire reached its maximum size, but over the next centuries they lost parts of Russia, Finnland
and in 1905 Norway.
An influx of immigrants has made the
country etnically more diverse but this has also increased tensions. In 2015 alone 200.000 refugees travelled to Sweden. Since
then access to the country has been tightened.
