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About Sweden

sweden

The Swedes are not a big nation. Sweden has a population of nine million people, which is less than the Belgium population and forms half of the Netherlands population. Probably due to this reason foreigners are surprised, when they understand how large the country territory is. Sweden is one of the biggest Western European countries by its territory, which can be compared with Spain and France.

The large territory size and the limited population make Sweden one of the least populated European countries. At the same time we shouldn’t forget that 90% of the population lives in the southern part of Sweden, in Newland, and it forms 2/3 part of the country with the population of more than one million people. Most of the country natural resources are concentrated exactly here, in wide desert lands of Newland, these are: timber, iron core and hydro resources, which are used in hydropower industry, constitute the Swedish industry economy base.

Most part of Swedish territory is covered with forests, mainly strings leaves, rocky spaces form 16% of the territory, lakes, rivers, marshes — 10% and agricultural lands — only 8%. More than 80% of the territory is comparably devoid of inhabitants. Swedish wide lands are convenient for living and agriculture only due to the Gulf Stream hot channel, passing through the western border of Norway. Those lands, situated at the same longitude in other parts of the world, for example in Canada, Alaska, Greenland and Siberia, mainly consist of tundra, useless for people living and activity.

sweden

Sweden is a royal state. When in the twentieth century Europe was divided into capitalism and socialism, only Sweden managed to remain in medium position. It was not surprising, as the Swedes inherited from their ancestors the determination of inseparability and giving pleasure to everybody.

In 1950-70-s especially American propaganda was trying to represent Sweden as half a socialist country, where human rights are extremely limited. But it’s just a legend. Sweden is a real democratic country with firmly established market economy.

The fact is that Sweden, more than other Western European countries, may have used socialist tendencies in its policy. It was done under the government of social-democratic party, which had governed the country from 1930-s up to 2006, with the exception of several periods. Finally such a society was formed in Sweden where the economic difference between classes was less than in any country having the same development level. The development of Sweden and its transformation from an awkward and backward village country into a modern industrial country, which took place just in the course of half a century, is often called “economic miracle”, being compared with the Japanese one on many points.

The incredible success of Swedish industry in the field of export in the twentieth century promoted to the establishment of the well-known Swedish wealthy (well-to-do) society. Timber, iron core, hydropower rich resources, concentrated in North Sweden, became one of the terms of Swedish “industry revolution”. But at the same time Sweden can be proud of its customs of innovation and enterprise. Those who stood at Swedish industry background didn’t want to confine themselves to production expertise. A number of genius discoveries lie in the country industry background in its mechanical, chemical and electrical fields.

Today this heritage finds its usage in such industries as Information Technologies (IT), Medicine, in which Sweden is one of the leading countries. In the course of decades a period of expertise was taking place in Swedish economy, which was often morbid. The companies were exporting the production or its separate parts to such foreign countries where the level of salaries was rather low. And this meant disappearance of working places in Sweden. Big Swedish companies were sold or became a part of transnational corporations. Today, as 100 years ago, Swedish industry binds its expectances and future plans with discovery spirit, new ideas and expertise, that is, with the ability of finding new ways in new activity conditions.

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International specialists, being in Sweden for the first time and seeing Swedish culture, are surprised at its richness and variety: art, architecture, opera, cinema, poetry, fashion, music, cooking art, etc.

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The Swedes could always quickly and successfully perceive impressions from outside and use them for their own objectives. The national culture of Sweden can be described as a culture built on countries with big culture.  


Yerevan
London
Stockholm