SWEDEN
Sweden is located at the same latitude (55oLat South/69 oLat North, 11oLong East/24 oLong West) as Alaska, Labrador, and Kamchatka. The Gulf Stream gives Sweden a mild climate, with hot summers and cold winters. This causes a large difference in the temperature between the Northern and Southern parts of Sweden.
In the winter, the northern region experiences arctic winters, and a display of the Aurora Borealis or Northern Lights. In the summer, the sky is always bright, with only a brief period of darkness between sunset and sunrise. The sun never sets it stays above the horizon at midnight, before it starts to rise again.
Sweden is the fifth largest country in Europe, with a land area of about 450,000 km2. Sweden is roughly the same size as California or Japan. The population is about 8.8 million people.
There are three major cities in Sweden, Stockholm, Göteborg and Malmö. The largest percentage of people live in and around Stockholm, the Capital, with 1.7 million people. Stockholm lies on the Baltic Cost. Göteborg is on the West Coast and has about 700,000 inhabitants. Malmö is located at the Southern tip of Sweden, across from Denmark's Capital Copenhagen. It has 251,408 (11 June 98-Statistcs Sweden) inhabitants.
The northernmost two-third's of Sweden are covered with forests (54%). In the Northwest high mountains form the border with Norway. In the South, the forests turn into cultivated landscape (8%), centered around the four largest lakes called Vänern, Vättern, Hjälmaren, and Mälaren. Sweden is almost completely surrounded by water. It is a land of many rivers and about 100,000 lakes (8,7%). The coast is covered with bays and harbors. Stockholm is built on and around an archipelago, and it is often referred to as the Venice of the North.
Source: Sweden 97 and Sweden - Stockholm Institute Brochure.