Skåne & the South

Skåne has some of Scandinavia's most fertile farmland, and it has been settled for as long as anywhere in the north. Stone Age hunters and farmers left dolmens and passage graves, and at Uppåkra, just south of Lund, archaeologists have found a large Iron Age cult and trading centre. For most of recorded history the province was Danish: Lund, founded around 990, became the seat of an archbishop for all Scandinavia in the early 12th century, and its cathedral was built as the church of that see.

Danish kings fortified the Öresund coast, and Helsingborg's Kärnan tower and Malmöhus castle held the sound together with Helsingør on the opposite shore. Merchant towns such as Malmö and Ystad grew on the herring trade with the Hanseatic cities. In 1658 Denmark ceded Skåne and Blekinge to Sweden in the Treaty of Roskilde. Denmark tried to win them back in the Scanian War, and the Battle of Lund in 1676 was one of the bloodiest ever fought in Scandinavia. Sweden then set about making the provinces Swedish, founding a university at Lund in 1666 and, in 1680, the naval base of Karlskrona in Blekinge to command the southern Baltic.

In the 19th century Skåne industrialised around sugar beet, brick, coal mining near Höganäs and the Kockums shipyard in Malmö. The closure of the shipyards hit Malmö hard, but the opening of the Öresund Bridge in 2000 and a new university turned the city towards Copenhagen and the knowledge economy.

Skåne has a strong regional identity that many residents place alongside being Swedish. The red-and-yellow Scanian flag flies from farmhouses, and the dialect, skånska, sounds closer to Danish than to Stockholm speech. Other Swedes sometimes joke that Skåne is part of Denmark.

The landscape shapes the culture: half-timbered farms, manor houses and some of Sweden's densest collections of castles, and a rural calendar around the harvest. Österlen, the south-eastern corner, is known for its orchards, and Kivik's apple market marks the harvest. The St Martin's goose dinner on 10 November is a Scanian institution, and in Österlen the ålagille, an autumn eel feast, keeps alive a fishing tradition.

Lund is a classic university town of student nations, choirs and a carnival held every four years, while Malmö is Sweden's most diverse city, where a large share of residents were born abroad. Blekinge, "Sweden's garden", has its own dialect and a coastal, naval culture centred on Karlskrona, where the Admiralty Church and naval museum reflect three centuries of the fleet.

Skåne has about 1.4 million people and Blekinge about 160,000. Malmö municipality has around 360,000 residents, Helsingborg about 150,000 and Lund about 130,000, with Kristianstad, Landskrona, Trelleborg and Ystad smaller; Karlskrona is Blekinge's largest town at around 65,000 in its municipality.

The economy is a mix of farming, food processing and knowledge industries. Skåne grows much of Sweden's grain, sugar beet and vegetables; Lund has the university, the research facilities of Ideon and the MAX IV synchrotron, and a history of inventions such as Tetra Pak's packaging. Malmö has shifted from shipbuilding to services, IT and games, and tens of thousands commute across the bridge to Denmark. Blekinge lives from the navy, the Saab-Kockums submarine yard, telecoms and the coast.

Life is shaped by proximity to Denmark: Danish television, trips across the sound, and a slightly more continental feel. Cycling is the normal way around Malmö and Lund. Current issues include gang violence and segregation in parts of Malmö, housing shortages in Lund, and the effect of border checks on commuters.

Skåne is Sweden's pantry, and its cooking is richer and more generous than the national average. The goose dinner of St Martin's Eve begins with svartsoppa, a black soup made with goose blood and spices, followed by roast goose with red cabbage and apples. Äggakaka, a thick baked egg pancake served with fried pork belly and lingonberries, is the everyday classic, and eel — smoked, fried or in stews — is the Österlen speciality at the autumn ålagille.

The sweet signature is spettekaka, a tall, dry cake of eggs and sugar baked in layers on a rotating spit. Kivik and the orchards of Österlen produce apples, cider and must, and Skåne grows the potatoes, cabbage and root vegetables at the heart of husmanskost.

In drink, Absolut vodka is distilled at Åhus near Kristianstad from Scanian wheat, and Skåne's aquavits and a growing number of vineyards on the south coast show the milder climate. Blekinge shares the potato dumplings called kroppkakor, filled with pork, with neighbouring Småland and Öland.

Malmö's old centre runs from Stortorget and Lilla Torg to Malmöhus castle and its museums, with the Turning Torso and the beaches of Ribersborg, with its open-air sea bath, in the Western Harbour. The Öresund Bridge is visible from the shore. Lund, a short train ride away, has its cathedral, the open-air museum of Kulturen and the university quarter. Helsingborg's Kärnan tower and the royal summer residence of Sofiero overlook the sound, and north of it the Kullaberg headland and the Bjäre peninsula offer cliffs and coves.

Along the south coast, Ystad has its half-timbered lanes, Greyfriars monastery and the settings of the Wallander stories, and the clifftop stones of Ales stenar stand above the fishing village of Kåseberga. The Österlen coast continues through Simrishamn, the medieval stronghold of Glimmingehus, the woods and beaches of Stenshuvud National Park and the apple village of Kivik with its Bronze Age King's Grave. Inland, the Söderåsen National Park has a forested ravine, and Kristianstad lies beside a UNESCO biosphere reserve of wetlands.

In Blekinge, Karlskrona's naval port spreads over islands, with the Naval Museum, the Admiralty Church and the Kungsholms fortress guarding the approach, and an archipelago of low granite islands along the coast towards Ronneby and Karlshamn.