Småland, Östergötland & the Baltic Islands

Gotland was a trading island long before it was Swedish. Its farmers raised carved picture stones in the Viking Age, and more Viking silver has been found buried on Gotland than anywhere else. From the 12th century Visby was a hub of Baltic trade, joined the Hanseatic League, and built a stone wall and many churches. In 1361 the Danish king Valdemar Atterdag took the island; it stayed Danish until 1645, when it passed to Sweden.

On the mainland, Östergötland's plains were an early centre of Swedish power. The Rök runestone carries the longest known runic inscription, Linköping became a bishopric in the 12th century, and at Vadstena on Lake Vättern Saint Bridget founded the Bridgettine order in the 14th century. Kalmar, the border fortress facing Danish Blekinge, gave its name to the union of Denmark, Norway and Sweden formed there in 1397, and its castle was rebuilt as a Renaissance palace by the Vasa kings.

Småland was poor, stony forest country. Its peasants rose against Gustav Vasa in the Dacke rebellion of 1542–43, and in the 19th century the region sent huge numbers of emigrants to America, the story told in Vilhelm Moberg's novels. Glass furnaces fed by forest timber grew up from 1742, when Kosta was founded, and Jönköping made safety matches. Östergötland industrialised earlier, with Norrköping's textile mills and later Linköping's Saab aircraft works, and the Göta Canal, opened in 1832, crossed the county on its way between the seas.

Småländingar are proverbially thrifty and inventive, and the region takes some pride in the stereotype: Ingvar Kamprad founded IKEA near Älmhult, and a dense web of small family firms still makes furniture, glass and tools. Free churches and temperance movements were strong around Jönköping, often called Småland's Jerusalem. Småland also has a claim on Swedish childhood through Astrid Lindgren, born at Vimmerby in 1907, whose Bullerby and Emil stories are set in the red cottages and stone walls of its countryside.

The islands keep their own character. Gotlanders speak a distinctive dialect, gutamål survives in parts of the island, and the island has its own sports, played at the Stånga Games each summer. Visby's Medieval Week in August fills the town with costumes, markets and jousting, and Almedalen Week turns it into a stage for party leaders and lobbyists. On Öland, windmills and the harvest festival in autumn mark the farming year, and the royal family spends summers at Solliden near Borgholm.

In Östergötland, the flat, fertile plain and its manor houses give a different, more patrician feel, and Linköping and Norrköping have a friendly rivalry as the two cities of the county.

The five counties have about 1.35 million people. Linköping has about 165,000 in its municipality, Norrköping and Jönköping about 145,000 each, Växjö about 95,000, with Kalmar smaller. Gotland has around 60,000 residents, about 40 per cent of them in Visby, and Öland about 25,000, many more in summer.

Östergötland's economy leans on Saab's aerospace and defence works in Linköping, the university and IT firms, and logistics and paper in Norrköping. Småland's is built on manufacturing: the Gnosjö area is famous for small engineering firms, and furniture, glass and timber remain important. Jönköping has become a logistics hub for warehouses serving all of Scandinavia. The islands live from farming, limestone and cement on Gotland, and tourism.

Rural Småland is ageing and depopulating, while the university cities grow. The glassworks have shrunk to a handful of working furnaces, Gotland has debated limestone quarrying and water shortages, and the Baltic's changed security picture has brought a renewed military presence to Gotland, where the Gotland Regiment was re-established in 2018.

Småland's best-known dish is ostkaka, a baked curd cake made with milk, eggs and almonds, served warm with jam and whipped cream. The potato dumplings called kroppkakor, stuffed with salted pork and onion and served with butter and lingonberries, are claimed by Öland and Småland alike. Småland's forests give lingonberries, bilberries, chanterelles and elk.

Gotland has the richest island food culture: saffranspannkaka, a baked saffron rice pudding eaten with dewberry jam and cream; lamb from the island's sheep; and Gotlandsdricka, a smoky, juniper-flavoured home-brewed ale. Öland grows brown beans, a protected local speciality, and has its own style of kroppkakor made with raw potato.

From Lake Vättern come Arctic char and whitefish, often smoked, and Gränna has made polkagrisar, red-and-white peppermint rock candy, since the 1850s. Östergötland's plains supply grain, rapeseed and pork, and the county's manor houses and farm shops sell smoked meats, cheeses and apple juice.

Gotland's centre is Visby, with its walls, gates and towers, St Mary's Cathedral and the ruins of St Nicholas and St Catherine, and the Gotland Museum's picture stones. Around the island lie limestone sea stacks, the raukar, at Fårö, where Ingmar Bergman lived, and on the north coast, with long beaches at Tofta and Sudersand. Öland, across the Kalmar Strait, has Borgholm's castle ruin, the royal gardens of Solliden, the ring fort of Eketorp, lines of windmills, the Stora Alvaret limestone plain of the UNESCO-listed southern Öland landscape and the Långe Jan lighthouse at the southern tip.

Kalmar has its castle, cathedral and old town on the coast. Inland, the Kingdom of Crystal around Kosta, Orrefors and Boda lies between Kalmar and Växjö, whose House of Emigrants tells the story of the great exodus. Linnaeus's birthplace at Råshult is nearby, and Vimmerby has Astrid Lindgren's World and her childhood home at Näs.

Lake Vättern stretches north from Jönköping, with Gränna's candy shops, the island of Visingsö and, on the Östergötland shore, the abbey town of Vadstena, the Omberg hill and the Rök runestone. Linköping has its cathedral and the Swedish Air Force Museum; Norrköping, its industrial riverfront; and the Göta Canal climbs the Carl Johan staircase locks at Berg nearby.