Dalarna, Värmland & Central Sweden

The wealth of central Sweden came out of the ground. At Falun, copper was mined from at least the 10th century, and the company that ran the Great Copper Mountain, Stora Kopparberg, holds a share document from 1288 and is often described as one of the world's oldest companies. In the 17th century Falun produced a large part of Europe's copper and paid for Sweden's wars. In 1687 the mine workings collapsed into the Great Pit that is still visible today. To the south, the iron mines and forges of Bergslagen, in Örebro county and beyond, supplied the other half of Sweden's metal economy for centuries.

Dalarna's independent-minded farmers and miners played a part in several national revolts. The most famous story tells how the young Gustav Vasa tried to raise the Dalecarlians against the Danish king in 1520–21, fled on skis towards Norway and was fetched back from Sälen by two men from Mora — the journey the Vasaloppet now commemorates. Örebro's castle was rebuilt by the Vasa dynasty, and the town hosted several national parliaments, including the one that elected Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte crown prince in 1810.

Värmland was a border province facing Norway, settled in its forests by Forest Finns in the 17th century and later made prosperous by iron works and timber floated down the Klarälven. In 1905 the negotiations that dissolved the union between Sweden and Norway were held in Karlstad.

To many Swedes, Dalarna is the essence of the national folk tradition. The villages around Lake Siljan kept their costumes, fiddle music and craft longest, and the painters Carl Larsson at Sundborn and Anders Zorn at Mora made them the nation's picture of rural life. Midsummer here means dancing around the maypole in local dress and rowing the long wooden church boats across the lake, and the carved and painted Dala horse, made in Nusnäs near Mora, has become a symbol of Sweden itself. Falu red, the paint made from the copper mine's waste, colours the wooden houses of the whole country.

Dalarna's dialects are famously strong; Elfdalian, spoken in Älvdalen, is so distinct that many linguists regard it as a separate language. The region also has a long fäbod tradition of summer mountain farms, with herding calls known as kulning.

Värmland is the literary province: Selma Lagerlöf, the first woman to win the Nobel Prize in Literature, lived at Mårbacka, and her Gösta Berling saga is set around the Fryken lakes; the poet Esaias Tegnér and the writer Gustaf Fröding are Värmland names too. Värmlanders are known for their humour and storytelling. Örebro, closer to the plains, is a more modern, practical city with a large university and a strong sporting life.

The three counties hold about 880,000 people. Örebro, with about 160,000 in its municipality, is the largest city, followed by Karlstad with about 95,000 and Falun and Borlänge with roughly 60,000 and 50,000. Mora, Rättvik and Leksand are small towns, and much of western Dalarna and northern Värmland is empty forest.

The economy mixes forestry, paper and pulp mills, steel, logistics and tourism. Borlänge has a large steelworks and the national transport agency, Karlstad has paper and packaging firms and a university, and Örebro's central location has made it a hub for warehouses and distribution. Mining has shrunk but not disappeared from Bergslagen. Tourism matters most in Dalarna, with the ski resorts in winter and the Siljan villages in summer.

Life follows the seasons strongly: long summer evenings at the lake cottage, autumn berry picking and elk hunting, and winters of skiing and ice hockey, which Leksand and Mora follow closely. Rural depopulation, the closure of services in small villages, and debates over wolves and forestry are local issues.

Falun gave the country falukorv, a mild, smooth pork-and-beef sausage that is a staple of Swedish home cooking, fried in slices or baked with mustard, and it holds an EU traditional-speciality label. In Dalarna the fäbod summer farms made whey cheese and messmör, a sweet, brown spread of boiled-down whey, and the Siljan villages bake crisp and soft flatbreads.

Värmland's signature is värmlandskorv, a sausage of pork, beef and potato eaten especially at Christmas, and the region's forests and rivers provide elk, trout, grayling and a great deal of lingonberry and chanterelle. Forest Finn heritage survives in rye and slash-and-burn crops once grown in the forests.

From Örebro county come Kopparberg cider, brewed in the Bergslagen town of the same name, and the small wooden town of Nora, known across Sweden for its ice-cream. Everywhere, fika breaks bring cinnamon buns and coffee, and the autumn elk hunt fills freezers with game for the winter.

Falun's copper mine can be toured underground or seen from the rim of the Great Pit, and the mining town and the Carl Larsson house at Sundborn lie close by. Around Lake Siljan, Rättvik has its long wooden pier and the Dalhalla open-air stage in a former limestone quarry; Leksand and Tällberg have lakeside villages and churches; and Mora has the Vasaloppet finish, the Zorn museum and the Dala horse workshops at Nusnäs.

In western Dalarna, Sälen is one of the country's largest ski areas, and further north Idre, Grövelsjön and Fulufjället National Park, with the high Njupeskär waterfall, bring mountain scenery rare in southern Sweden.

In Värmland, Karlstad has its riverside centre and the Sandgrund Lars Lerin art gallery, and the Klarälven valley offers log-raft trips. Mårbacka, Selma Lagerlöf's house near Sunne, stands above the Fryken lakes. Örebro has its castle, the Wadköping open-air museum and a lively centre, while the county also holds the old wooden town of Nora and the forests of Kilsbergen.