Official Name: Konungariket Sverige (Kingdom of Sweden)

Area: Europe

Size: 449,964 km²

Coastline: 3,218 km

Independence: It is not known when and how the kingdom of Sweden was born.

Form of Govt.: Constitutional monarchy

Head of Govt.: Prime Minister

Capital: Stockholm

Largest City: Stockholm

Demographics (2005): 9,113,257.   20 /km²

Swedes, Sweden-Finns

GDP per Capita (2005): $31,600

Languages: Swedish

Geography: The country is divided into four topographical regions. (1.) The Norrland or Baltic Slope which accounts for 60% of the land area and consists of rolling hills, forested mountains and large river valleys. (2.) Central Sweden which has a faulted terrain with many lakes. (3.) The wooded highlands of Smaland in the south. (4.) Scania or Skane which is the southern most part of the country and is a continuation of the Danish and North German Plains. The territory also includes the coastal islands of Gotland and Oland while around 9% of the land area is accounted for by inland lakes, of which the Vanern, Vattern, Hjalmaren and Malaren are the largest.

Climate: Sweden has a typically continental climate with a moderate to large range in temperatures between summer and winter. Most of the Norrland has a long winter of seven months with cold temperatures and a hot summer of less than three months while Skane in the south has a cold winter of two months and a summer of more than four months. Average annual precipitation is heaviest in the southwest at 580 mm while the average for Lapland in the northwest is only 300 mm and most rainfall north of Stockholm is snow. Average temperature ranges in Stockholm are from -5 to -1 degrees in February to 4 to 22 degrees in July.