7.2.4 Sweden Population
Description
This article is from the Nordic countries FAQ, by Antti Lahelma and Johan Olofsson, with numerous contributions by others.
7.2.4 Sweden Population
The nation has its roots in the different kingdoms of the Viking Age, and is
said to have been created when the King of the Svenonians ("Svearna")
assumed kingship over Goths ("Götarna") as well in early middle ages. The
word Sweden ("Sverige" short for "Svea rike" in Swedish) comes from the
Svenonians ("Svearna"); "Sverige" means the realm of the Svenonians. The
English form of the name is probably derived from an old Germanic form,
Svetheod, meaning the Swedish people. In medieval times the Swedes also
pushed north to colonize the province now known as Norrland, and over the
Baltic Sea to conquer Finland.
Sweden has a relatively homogeneous population in ethnic stock, language,
and religion.
Because of the country's isolation only few non-Swedes have intermixed with
the Swedes before very recent times; the major groups that have done so were
Finns 1580-1660 and Walloons from present-day Belgium, who settled in the
Bergslagen area in the 1620s.
Groups that maintain their distinct ethnic identity today include a Finnish
minority on the border to Finland, about 15,000 Saami, and recent
immigrants.
Since 1987 the Tornedalen-Finnish, Saami languages and Romani have special
status as minority languages, and since 1993 the Saami minority elects a
representative assembly, the Saami Parliament, which however has limited
power. Constitutionally this assembly, despite its name, is less more than a
lobby organization with authority to distribute the funds the Swedish
government let it dispose.
In the furtest north geographical names make the Lappish heritage obvious.
The following words in Saami languages are usual:
tjuolma= land between rivers,
luokta = bay,
jaure = sea,
jokk = small river,
kaise = steep peak,
tjåkkå = blunt peak,
vare = fjeld mountain,
tuottar= fjeld plain (without trees).
12% of the population are 1:st generation immigrants:
from the Baltic countries (1944); Hungary (1956); Yugoslavia, Greece, and
Turkey (in the 1960s and '70s), Czechoslovakia (1968), Chile (1973), Iran
and Iraq (in the 1980s), Palestina/Lebanon, and recently arrived refugees
from the civil wars in Yugoslavia. A third of the immigrants (4,4%) has
arrived from the neighboring countries Finland, Norway, Denmark, Germany and
Poland.
Today about half of the immigrants have Swedish citizenship.
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