Stockholm
Sweden's capital, a city built across fourteen islands
Stockholm floats. Sweden's capital is spread across fourteen islands where the freshwater of Lake Mälaren meets the brackish Baltic Sea, stitched together by more than fifty bridges and ringed by an archipelago of thousands more islets. The medieval old town of Gamla Stan sits on its own island of ochre houses and narrow lanes, while sleek modern districts, royal palaces, and the world's only preserved seventeenth-century warship cluster around the water. A clean, design-forward metropolis of over two million, it is often called the Venice of the North.
The city occupies the point where Lake Mälaren drains into the Baltic, its islands low and rocky, rising only modestly above the water, with the surrounding county reaching about 111 metres at its highest. The interplay of lake and sea defines the geography, and the vast archipelago — some twenty-four thousand islands and skerries — fans out to the east. The northern latitude brings long, dark winters and luminous summers of near-endless daylight, and the surrounding water keeps the climate milder than the latitude suggests.
Founded in 1252 by the statesman Birger Jarl at the strategic lake-to-sea junction, Stockholm grew into the capital of the Swedish kingdom and, in the seventeenth century, of a Baltic empire. It industrialized and modernized into one of the world's most prosperous and progressive cities, the seat of the Swedish monarchy and government and the place where the Nobel Prizes are awarded each December. Today Stockholm is a leading center of technology, design, and Nordic quality of life.