In 1749 Sweden became the first country
in the world to start a regular national census. At that time the population
of Sweden was 1,764,724. The population at the 1990 census was 8,585,907.
Women have outnumbered men in Sweden ever since the first census. But in
recent years the imbalance has been reduced, in part because of the preponderance
of males among immigrants. Men outnumber women in the countryside, but
in urban areas, where most Swede's live, women are more numerous. Sweden
as a whole is thinly peopled, but regional densities vary greatly. Settlement
is dense in the south-central lowlands, in Skåne, the province nearest
to Denmark and in the southern coastal tracts. It is particularly dense
around the cities of Stockholm, Göteborg, and Malmö. Only 10
percent of the population live in the 4 counties comprising the northern
half of the country. The most sparsely inhabited regions are the interior
of the north and the southern plateaus.
Natural increase has been slow, averaging
0.2-0.3 percent per year in the 1970's and 1980's and rising slightly in
the early 1990's. Both the birth rate and the death rate have been low
since 1930. Fears of falling population in the 1930's as a result of low
birth rates (averaging 14.5 per 1,000 inhabitants) encouraged social policies
such as governmental cash allowances to encourage larger families. There
was a brief "baby boom," with births reaching 18.5 per 1,000 in the 1990's.
Swedenäs excellent health services reduced infant mortality from 46
infant deaths per 1,000 live births in the 1930's to less than 6 per 1,000
since the mid-1980's. The death rate since the late 1940's has been 10
or 11 deaths per 1,000 inhabitants. Since the 1940's the proportion of
people aged 65 or older has more than doubled from 8 to 18 percent by 1992.
Life expectancy at birth in the early 1990's was 76 years for males and
81 for females.
Emigration was considerable between 1860
and World War 1. In this period, more than one million men, women, and
children left Sweden, mainly for the United States. Since 1930, emigration
has been slight. About 15,000 left Sweden each year between 1955 and 1965.
The number of emigrants rose to about 30,000 annually in the 1970's, but
declined again to around 23,000 annually in the 1980's. Sweden welcomed
refugees and displaced persons at the end of World War 2. Between 1945
and 1980 the immigration accounted for 45% of Sweden's population
growth; by 1991 9% of the population had been born abroad. After 1980 immigration
again increased rapidly, mostly because of new refugees, reaching more
than 60,000 annually by 1990. The increase stirred some anti-migrant feelings.
In 1994 there were 508,000 foriegn nationals in Sweden, concentrated mainly
in the larger cities. The largest grpups were Finns (210,000), Yugoslavs
(70,000), Iranians (48,000), Norwegians (47,000), Danes (41,000), and Turks
(29,000). Aliens may vote in Swedish local elections after 3 years of legal
residence.
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Ethnic
Composition and Language
The vast majority of Swede's are of Nordic
stock and speak Swedish, a Germanic language closely related to Norwegian
and Danish. English is widely spoken, especially by the younger generation,
who must study it for at least four years in school. The largest ethnic
minorities are the native Finns, numbering about 80,000, and the Lapps
(Sami), about 17,000. Lapps, whose language is similar to Finnish, live
in the far north. The Finns and the Lapps also speak Swedish.
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Religion
Most Swedes belong to the Evangelical Lutheran
Church., which is the state church in Sweden. Swedish citizens are born
into the state church unless formal withdrawal is made. Nonconformist Protestant
communities include the Pentecostal Movement, with 94,000 members in 1993;
the Swedish Mission Covenant Church, with 75,000 members; the Salvation
Army, with 28,000; and the Baptists, with 20,000. There were about 150,000
Roman Catholics, 130,000 Eastern Orthodox Christians, 75,000 Muslims, and
16,000 Jews. Most of the Orthodox Cristians and Jews are immigrants from
eastern Europe, while the Muslims are recent immigrants from the Middle
East.
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Urbanization
Sweden is highly urbanized. In 1990 about
83% of the population lived in the cities. As recently as 1940 only 38%
of the population lived in urban areas, and in 1960, before industrialization,
the proportion was 11%. The drift from the countryside to the cities has
accelerated and has brought about a population decrease in many areas,
especially in the north. Most cities are small. At the end of 1991 only
10 cities had populations more than 100,000. Stockholm, the capital, had
679,400 inhabitants, and the Stockholm metropolitan area, which forms a
single administrative unit, had 1,655,000. Other large cities in Sweden
include the great ports and industrial centers of Göteborg on the
west coast, 432,100 inhabitants, and Malmö on the Sound in the southwest,
234,800. Västerås, at the opposite end of Lake Mälaren
from Stockholm, had 120,400 inhabitants. Other large cities include the
ancient ecclesiastical and cultural center of Uppsala (170,700), the textile
center of Norrköpping (120,700), Örebro, once famous for the
production of boots and shoes (122,000), and the port of Hälsingborg
(109,900). The largest city in northern Sweden is Sundsvall (94,000), which
grew with the development of the forest industries in the 19th century.
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