Östersund

The shores of Storsjön have been lived on for thousands of years, but the centre of Jämtland was long the island of Frösön, Freyr's island, where a hill fort was built around 300 AD, a market was held from the 11th century and a runestone recorded the province's conversion to Christianity. Jämtland belonged to Norway for centuries and passed to Sweden only in 1645. The mainland shore opposite was little more than the island's link to the east.

Östersund was founded and chartered by Gustav III on 23 October 1786, the only Swedish town founded in the 18th century. It was meant to give the Crown control over the profitable trade of Jämtland's farmers, but they resisted dealing through middlemen, and for its first fifty years the town grew by an average of only eight people a year. Trade was liberalised and logging grew in the 1850s, but the real change came with the railway in 1879; by 1882 the line ran across the mountains to Trondheim and east to Sundsvall, and Östersund replaced Frösön as the centre of Jämtland. It became a wholesale centre for northern Sweden and a major garrison town, and the Inlandsbanan later crossed it from north to south.

After the Second World War the city grew with new suburbs and industry, and in 1963, as the rest of Jämtland lagged behind, the tongue-in-cheek Republic of Jamtland was proclaimed in protest at government policy, with Östersund as its capital. Frösö köping joined the city in 1970, public-sector jobs expanded, and since 2005 the city has been the largest campus of Mid Sweden University. The garrison closed in the early 21st century.

Östersund calls itself the Winter City, and winter sport is central to its identity. It has hosted the Biathlon World Championships in 1970, 2008 and 2019 and World Cup races since 1989, the Nordic Games were held here when Stockholm lacked snow, and the city has bid several times, without success, for the Winter Olympics. The national winter sports research centre works with the university. Östersund's skydiving club, formed in 1958, is the oldest of Sweden's drop zones, and the very first civilian parachute jump was made on the ice of Storsjön in 1956. In football, Östersunds FK rose from the fourth tier to win the Swedish Cup in 2017 and knock Galatasaray out of the Europa League.

Storsjöyran, the city festival, grew out of the Republic of Jamtland joke in the 1960s and now draws around 55,000 people to the centre at the end of July, with bars and restaurants gathering by the lake in the week before. Jamtli keeps the province's past alive with costumed actors in its historical buildings in summer and a Christmas market in Advent.

Local identity is strongly Jamtish. The lake monster Storsjöodjuret, first written about in 1635 and said in one tale to have been bound by a spell carved into the Frösö runestone, is a beloved local legend. Residents are östersundare, though country people call them stassbon, and the city also carries a Southern Sami name, Staare.

In 2020 about 53,000 people lived in the urban area, and the municipality had about 65,000 inhabitants in 2023, making Östersund by far the largest inland city in northern Sweden; a small part of the urban area lies in neighbouring Krokom municipality. It is the county seat and the economic and cultural centre of Jämtland, with the county administration, the regional hospital, government agencies and the Mid Sweden University campus of over 7,000 students.

Daily life follows the slope of the city: people live in the central grid of Staden, in districts such as Odensala, Torvalla, Lugnvik and Körfältet on the mainland, and on the slopes of Frösön, connected by bridges and city buses. The centre's shops and cafés line Prästgatan, and from many streets the lake and the mountains are in view — the so-called windows to the west.

Winter shapes routines, with ice grips, ski tracks and skating on the lake, and summer brings swimming and sunbathing by Storsjön. The closure of the garrison early this century and the long drift of people from the Jämtland countryside to the cities have shaped the city's recent history.

Östersund's best-known contribution to Swedish food is a claim. Gunnar Sjödahl, a confectioner in the city, says he came up with the idea for the smörgåstårta — the sandwich cake, a savoury dish of layered white or light rye bread with creamy fillings and toppings — as an apprentice in Härnösand in 1965, and Smörgåstårta Day falls on 13 November, his birthday. The cake has become popular throughout Sweden, and the city's old cafés, such as Wedemarks on Prästgatan, keep up the tradition of coffee and pastries, or fika.

The lands around Storsjön have been described as the world's northernmost true inland farming district, and the elk, on Jämtland's coat of arms, is part of its heritage. The mountains to the west are Sami country, where traditional cooking is built on reindeer, fish such as whitefish and Arctic char, and game, seasoned with little more than salt.

Everyday eating follows Swedish husmanskost — meatballs with brown cream sauce and lingonberry jam, pea soup, herring and salmon — and the weekday lunch special, dagens rätt. Prästgatan's restaurants range from traditional Nordic cooking to Thai food, and wine and strong beer are sold through the state Systembolaget.