Västerås

The city's name comes from Västra Aros, "west river mouth", for its place where the Svartån river runs into Lake Mälaren. The land around it was settled long before the town: Anundshög, just outside the city, is Sweden's largest burial mound, set among stone ships and standing stones, and assemblies were recorded there in the Middle Ages. The town grew as a trading place on the river and the lake, and a bishop's see, a cathedral and a monastery followed; the Gothic cathedral, rebuilt by Birger Jarl on an earlier site, was consecrated in 1271.

Västerås Castle, first built in the 12th century, was captured and rebuilt by Gustav Vasa, who also called the riksdag to Västerås. After a great fire in 1741, according to tradition, cucumbers were grown in large quantities on the cleared ground, and through the 18th and 19th centuries cucumber growing gave the city its nickname, Gurkstaden, the Cucumber City.

Modern Västerås was made by electricity. In 1891 a small hydroelectric station, the Turbine House, was built on the Svartån in the centre, and this early power encouraged ASEA, a large maker of electrical equipment, to concentrate its operations here. The company grew into one of Sweden's major industrial firms, merged with Brown, Boveri & Cie in 1988 to form ABB, and made Västerås an engineering city whose population grew through the 20th century.

The city markets itself as Mälarstaden, the city by Lake Mälaren, and the lake shapes its leisure: the harbour is the largest lakeside commercial and recreational port in Scandinavia, and in summer boats run to islands such as Elba and Ridö, while Björnögården offers a beach, walking tracks and kayak hire. The cucumber nickname is one the city still keeps.

Sport means bandy above all. Västerås SK, the green and white club founded in 1904, is the most successful bandy team in Sweden, with 22 national championships, and plays in the largest permanent indoor bandy arena in the country; the Bandy World Championship has been played in the city several times. The club's football side reached the top division, Allsvenskan, after winning the second tier, Superettan, in 2023.

For many years the city hosted Power Big Meet, one of the largest gatherings of classic American cars, and the Västerås Summer Meet continues the tradition at the same site. The cathedral, the old quarter of Kyrkbacken and the open-air museum at Vallby keep the city's older history in view, and the student population of Mälardalen University adds a younger side.

The city had about 131,600 inhabitants in 2023, making it Sweden's sixth-largest urban area, and the whole municipality about 161,000 in 2026.

Engineering remains the backbone of the economy. ABB keeps its Swedish headquarters here and makes robots, industrial drives and equipment for high-voltage power transmission; Westinghouse produces nuclear fuel; and railway propulsion systems, power equipment and other manufacturing provide many more jobs. The city-owned Mälarenergi supplies district heating and electricity, and its central location in the Mälaren valley, with railways, waterways and motorways, makes Västerås a major logistics centre, with large distribution warehouses.

Evenings move outdoors in the light months. In summer the lakeshore, the marinas and the islands are where much of the city relaxes; in winter the lake usually freezes from December until the end of March, and it is the season of bandy, the city's leading sport. Mälardalen University brings students into the city centre through the academic year.

Västerås's best-known food is the cucumber. From the 18th century the area grew cucumbers in large quantities, and the Västerås cucumber, first grown here by a German gardener, Bernhard Johan Bohnsack, was sold throughout the country and exported to Europe, giving the city its nickname.

Everyday eating follows Swedish habits: the weekday lunch special, dagens rätt, and classics of husmanskost such as köttbullar, meatballs with brown cream sauce and lingonberry jam, and fried Baltic herring, stekt strömming. Fika, coffee with a cinnamon bun, kanelbulle, or other pastry, punctuates the working day.

The main square, Stora torget, is the centre of eating out, with one of the city's oldest and most classic restaurants, Stadskällaren, and many pubs and bars around it; Piazza di Spagna on Vasagatan is another of the city's oldest restaurants. The skyscraper nicknamed Skrapan, "The Scraper", holds the Sky Bar on its 24th floor, Sweden's highest-elevation cocktail bar. In summer, eating moves out to the lake and its beaches.