1.
Swedes (Germanic tribe)
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The Swedes (Swedish, svear, Old Norse, svíar / suar were a North Germanic tribe. The first author who wrote about the tribe is Tacitus, who in his Germania, Jordanes, in the sixth century, mentions Suehans and Sueones. According to early sources such as the sagas, especially Heimskringla, during the Viking Age they constituted the basis of the Varangian subset, the Vikings that travelled eastwards. As the dominions of the Swedish kings grew, the name of the tribe could be applied more generally during the Middle Ages to include also the Geats, later it again meant only the people inhabiting the original tribal lands in Svealand, rather than the Geats. In modern North Germanic languages, the adjectival form svensk and its plural svenskar have replaced the name svear and is, today, used to denote all the citizens of Sweden. Although this distinction is convention in modern Norwegian, Danish and Swedish, Icelandic and their primary dwellings were in eastern Svealand. Their territories also very early included the provinces of Västmanland, Södermanland, the region is still one of the most fertile and densely populated regions of Scandinavia. Their territories were called Svealand - Swede-land, Suithiod - Swede-people, the Æsir-cult centre in Gamla Uppsala, was the religious centre of the Swedes and where the Swedish king served as a priest during the sacrifices. Uppsala was also the centre of the Uppsala öd, the network of estates that financed the Swedish king. The form Suiones appears in the Roman author Tacituss Germania, a closely similar form, Sweon, is found in Old English and in the Gesta Hammaburgensis ecclesiae pontificum of Adam of Bremen about the Hamburg-Bremen archbishops who are denoted Sueones. Most scholars agree that Suiones and the attested Germanic forms of the name derive from the same Proto-Indo-European reflexive pronominal root, *se, the word must have meant ones own. In modern Scandinavian, the same appears in words such as svåger. The same root and original meaning is found in the ethnonym of the Germanic tribe Suebi, the details of the phonetic development vary between different proposals. Noréen proposed that Suiones is a Latin rendering of Proto-Germanic *Swihoniz, the form *Swihoniz would in Ulfilas Gothic become *Swaíhans, which later would result in the form Suehans that Jordanes mentioned as the name of the Swedes in Getica. Consequently, the Proto-Norse form would have been *Swehaniz which following the sound-changes in Old Norse resulted in Old West Norse Svíar, *Swe is also the form cited by V. Friesen, who regards the form Sviones as being originally an adjective, Proto-Germanic *Sweoniz, meaning kindred. Then the Gothic form would have been *Swians and the H in Suehans a epenthesis, the Proto-Norse form would then also have been *Sweoniz, which also would have resulted in the historically attested forms. The name became part of a compound, which in Old West Norse was Svíþjóð and he further mentions that the Suiones were much impressed by wealth, and the kings thus was absolute. Further, the Suiones did not normally bear arms, and that the weapons were guarded by a slave, after Tacitus mention of the Suiones, the sources are silent about them until the 6th century as Scandinavia still was in pre-historic times
2.
Middle Ages
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In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or Medieval Period lasted from the 5th to the 15th century. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire and merged into the Renaissance, the Middle Ages is the middle period of the three traditional divisions of Western history, classical antiquity, the medieval period, and the modern period. The medieval period is subdivided into the Early, High. Population decline, counterurbanisation, invasion, and movement of peoples, the large-scale movements of the Migration Period, including various Germanic peoples, formed new kingdoms in what remained of the Western Roman Empire. In the seventh century, North Africa and the Middle East—once part of the Byzantine Empire—came under the rule of the Umayyad Caliphate, although there were substantial changes in society and political structures, the break with classical antiquity was not complete. The still-sizeable Byzantine Empire survived in the east and remained a major power, the empires law code, the Corpus Juris Civilis or Code of Justinian, was rediscovered in Northern Italy in 1070 and became widely admired later in the Middle Ages. In the West, most kingdoms incorporated the few extant Roman institutions, monasteries were founded as campaigns to Christianise pagan Europe continued. The Franks, under the Carolingian dynasty, briefly established the Carolingian Empire during the later 8th, the Crusades, first preached in 1095, were military attempts by Western European Christians to regain control of the Holy Land from Muslims. Kings became the heads of centralised nation states, reducing crime and violence, intellectual life was marked by scholasticism, a philosophy that emphasised joining faith to reason, and by the founding of universities. Controversy, heresy, and the Western Schism within the Catholic Church paralleled the conflict, civil strife. Cultural and technological developments transformed European society, concluding the Late Middle Ages, the Middle Ages is one of the three major periods in the most enduring scheme for analysing European history, classical civilisation, or Antiquity, the Middle Ages, and the Modern Period. Medieval writers divided history into periods such as the Six Ages or the Four Empires, when referring to their own times, they spoke of them as being modern. In the 1330s, the humanist and poet Petrarch referred to pre-Christian times as antiqua, leonardo Bruni was the first historian to use tripartite periodisation in his History of the Florentine People. Bruni and later argued that Italy had recovered since Petrarchs time. The Middle Ages first appears in Latin in 1469 as media tempestas or middle season, in early usage, there were many variants, including medium aevum, or middle age, first recorded in 1604, and media saecula, or middle ages, first recorded in 1625. The alternative term medieval derives from medium aevum, tripartite periodisation became standard after the German 17th-century historian Christoph Cellarius divided history into three periods, Ancient, Medieval, and Modern. The most commonly given starting point for the Middle Ages is 476, for Europe as a whole,1500 is often considered to be the end of the Middle Ages, but there is no universally agreed upon end date. English historians often use the Battle of Bosworth Field in 1485 to mark the end of the period
3.
Viking Age
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The Viking Age is the period from the late 8th century to the mid-11th century in European history, especially Northern European and Scandinavian history, following the Germanic Iron Age. It is the period of history when Scandinavian Norsemen explored Europe by its seas and rivers for trade, raids, colonisation and conquest. Three Viking ships had beached in Weymouth Bay four years earlier, the Viking devastation of Northumbrias Holy Island was reported by the Northumbrian scholar Alcuin of York, who wrote, Never before in Britain has such a terror appeared. Vikings were portrayed as violent and bloodthirsty by their enemies. The chronicles of medieval England portrayed them as rapacious wolves among sheep, the first challenges to the many anti-Viking images in Britain emerged in the 17th century. Pioneering scholarly works on the Viking Age reached a readership in Britain. Archaeologists began to dig up Britains Viking past, linguistics traced the Viking-Age origins of rural idioms and proverbs. New dictionaries of the Old Norse language enabled more Victorians to read the Icelandic Sagas, the Vikings who invaded western and eastern Europe were chiefly pagans from Denmark, Norway and Sweden. They also settled in the Faroe Islands, Ireland, Iceland, peripheral Scotland, Greenland and their North Germanic language, Old Norse, became the mother-tongue of present-day Scandinavian languages. By 801, a central authority appears to have been established in Jutland. In Norway, mountainous terrain and fjords formed strong natural boundaries, communities there remained independent of each other, unlike the situation in Denmark which is lowland. By 800, some 30 small kingdoms existed in Norway, the sea was the easiest way of communication between the Norwegian kingdoms and the outside world. It was in the 8th century that Scandinavians began to build ships of war, the North Sea rovers were traders, colonisers and explorers as well as plunderers. There are various theories concerning the causes of the Viking invasions, for people living along the coast, it would seem natural to seek new land by the sea. Another reason was that during this period England, Wales and Ireland, the Franks, however, had well-defended coasts and heavily fortified ports and harbours. Pure thirst for adventure may also have been a factor, a reason for the raids is believed by some to be over-population caused by technological advances, such as the use of iron, or a shortage of women due to selective female infanticide. Although another cause could well have been caused by the Frankish expansion to the south of Scandinavia. Consequently, these Vikings became raiders, in search of subsistence, There is ongoing debate among scholars as to why the Scandinavians began to expand during the 8th through 11th centuries
4.
Navy
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A navy or maritime force is a fleet of waterborne military vessels and its associated naval aviation, both sea-based and land-based. It is the branch of an armed forces principally designated for naval and amphibious warfare, namely, lake-borne, riverine, littoral, or ocean-borne combat operations. The strategic offensive role of a navy is projection of force into areas beyond a countrys shores, the strategic defensive purpose of a navy is to frustrate seaborne projection-of-force by enemies. The strategic task of the navy also may incorporate nuclear deterrence by use of submarine-launched ballistic missiles. In most nations, the naval, as opposed to navy, is interpreted as encompassing all maritime military forces, e. g. navy, marine / marine corps. First attested in English in the early 14th century, the navy came via Old French navie, fleet of ships, from the Latin navigium, a vessel. The word naval came from Latin navalis, pertaining to ship, cf. Greek ναῦς, ship, ναύτης, seaman, the earliest attested form of the word is in the Mycenaean Greek compound word
5.
Russia
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Russia, also officially the Russian Federation, is a country in Eurasia. The European western part of the country is more populated and urbanised than the eastern. Russias capital Moscow is one of the largest cities in the world, other urban centers include Saint Petersburg, Novosibirsk, Yekaterinburg, Nizhny Novgorod. Extending across the entirety of Northern Asia and much of Eastern Europe, Russia spans eleven time zones and incorporates a range of environments. It shares maritime borders with Japan by the Sea of Okhotsk, the East Slavs emerged as a recognizable group in Europe between the 3rd and 8th centuries AD. Founded and ruled by a Varangian warrior elite and their descendants, in 988 it adopted Orthodox Christianity from the Byzantine Empire, beginning the synthesis of Byzantine and Slavic cultures that defined Russian culture for the next millennium. Rus ultimately disintegrated into a number of states, most of the Rus lands were overrun by the Mongol invasion. The Soviet Union played a role in the Allied victory in World War II. The Soviet era saw some of the most significant technological achievements of the 20th century, including the worlds first human-made satellite and the launching of the first humans in space. By the end of 1990, the Soviet Union had the second largest economy, largest standing military in the world. It is governed as a federal semi-presidential republic, the Russian economy ranks as the twelfth largest by nominal GDP and sixth largest by purchasing power parity in 2015. Russias extensive mineral and energy resources are the largest such reserves in the world, making it one of the producers of oil. The country is one of the five recognized nuclear weapons states and possesses the largest stockpile of weapons of mass destruction, Russia is a great power as well as a regional power and has been characterised as a potential superpower. The name Russia is derived from Rus, a state populated mostly by the East Slavs. However, this name became more prominent in the later history, and the country typically was called by its inhabitants Русская Земля. In order to distinguish this state from other states derived from it, it is denoted as Kievan Rus by modern historiography, an old Latin version of the name Rus was Ruthenia, mostly applied to the western and southern regions of Rus that were adjacent to Catholic Europe. The current name of the country, Россия, comes from the Byzantine Greek designation of the Kievan Rus, the standard way to refer to citizens of Russia is Russians in English and rossiyane in Russian. There are two Russian words which are translated into English as Russians
6.
Belarus
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Its capital and most populous city is Minsk. Over 40% of its 207,600 square kilometres is forested and its strongest economic sectors are service industries and manufacturing. In the aftermath of the 1917 Russian Revolution, Belarus declared independence as the Belarusian Peoples Republic, the Socialist Soviet Republic of Byelorussia became a founding constituent republic of the Soviet Union in 1922 and was renamed as the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic. Belarus lost almost half of its territory to Poland after the Polish–Soviet War of 1919–1921, during WWII, military operations devastated Belarus, which lost about a third of its population and more than half of its economic resources. The republic was redeveloped in the post-war years, in 1945 the Byelorussian SSR became a founding member of the United Nations, along with the Soviet Union and the Ukrainian SSR. The parliament of the declared the sovereignty of Belarus on 27 July 1990. Alexander Lukashenko has served as the president since 1994. Belarus has been labeled Europes last dictatorship by some Western journalists, Lukashenko continued a number of Soviet-era policies, such as state ownership of large sections of the economy. Though not directly espousing communism like the five remaining communist countries of China, Cuba, Laos, Vietnam and North Korea, in 2000 Belarus and Russia signed a treaty for greater cooperation, with some hints of forming a Union State. Over 70% of Belaruss population of 9.49 million resides in urban areas, more than 80% of the population is ethnic Belarusian, with sizable minorities of Russians, Poles and Ukrainians. Since a referendum in 1995, the country has had two official languages, Belarusian and Russian, the Constitution of Belarus does not declare any official religion, although the primary religion in the country is Eastern Orthodox Christianity. Belarus is the only European country to retain capital punishment in both law and practice, the name Belarus is closely related with the term Belaya Rus, i. e. White Rus. There are several claims to the origin of the name White Rus, an alternate explanation for the name comments on the white clothing worn by the local Slavic population. A third theory suggests that the old Rus lands that were not conquered by the Tatars had been referred to as white, other sources claim that, before 1267, the land not conquered by the Mongols was considered White Rus. The name Rus is often conflated with its Latin forms Russia and Ruthenia, in some languages, including German and Dutch, the country is generally called White Russia to this day. The Latin term Alba Russia was used again by Pope Pius VI in 1783 to recognize the Society of Jesus there, exclaiming Approbo Societatem Jesu in Alba Russia degentem, approbo, approbo. The first known use of White Russia to refer to Belarus was in the century by Englishman Sir Jerome Horsey. During the 17th century, the Russian tsars used White Rus to describe the lands added from the Grand Duchy of Lithuania
7.
Roslagsbanan
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Roslagsbanan is a 891 mm narrow gauge urban railway system in Roslagen, Stockholm County, Sweden. Its combined route length is 65 kilometres and there are 38 stations, the line starts in Stockholm at Stockholm East Station. It goes north and splits into three lines at the junction stations Djursholms Ösby and Roslags Näsby, the three branches terminate at Näsbypark, Österskär and Kårsta. It is double track between Stockholm and Viggbyholm and between Rydbo and Åkersberga, the rest is single track, but the line to Vallentuna was being doubled in 2012 and Rydbo-Åkers Runö in 2013. There are passing loops at stations on the single track sections, at Altorp, Hägernäs, Österskär, Visinge, Täby kyrkby, Ormsta, Lindholmen. The railway, owned by the Stockholm County Council through the transport company Storstockholms Lokaltrafik, is not part of the nationally owned network. It is the narrow gauge railway in Sweden still in use for commercial traffic. Roslagsbanan is part of the Stockholm public transport system and it is operated under contract by Arriva Sverige from 7 January 2013. Arriva Sverige took over from previous contracted company Roslagståg AB, which was a joint venture by the Danish DSB, despite its age and limited capacity it is one of the most used railways in Sweden. Since the late 1980s, the railway has constantly but slowly been upgraded to a standard with modernised rolling stock, higher platforms. There are 15 departures from Stockholm East in the rush hour. In 2015, the raliway had a ridership of 42,000 journeys per day, Roslagsbanan is now used by Storstockholms lokaltrafik for commuter transport. For more information on this, see the section below. The line numbers are not displayed on the trains, only the name of the destination is displayed. In the timetables of Samtrafiken, the lines do not have the numbers as stated above, the present train sets were manufactured by ABB Railcar and delivered in 1988–1995. The train sets are owned by SL, but maintained and operated by Roslagståg, the refurbishment also included new interiors and exteriors. There are some problems with the rolling stock, previously, the carriages had very poor wheelchair accessibility due to narrow doors and stairs, with the 2012–2016 refurbishment, this has been fixed on some carriages. The trains are very noisy, especially considering the railway mostly goes through built up suburban areas
8.
Stockholm archipelago
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The Stockholm archipelago is the largest archipelago in Sweden, and the second-largest archipelago in the Baltic Sea. The archipelago extends from Stockholm roughly 60 kilometres to the east, in a north–south direction, it mainly follows the coastline of the Södermanland and Uppland provinces, reaching roughly from Öja island, south of Nynäshamn, to Väddö, north of Norrtälje. It is separated from Åland by a stretch of water named South Kvarken, a separate group of islands lies further north, near the town of Öregrund. Between Arholma and Landsort there are approximately 24,000 islands, some of the better-known islands are Dalarö, Finnhamn, Nässlingen, Grinda, Husarö, Ingarö, Isö, Ljusterö, Möja, Nämdö, Rödlöga, Tynningö, Utö, Svartsö and Värmdö. The biggest towns of the archipelago, apart from Stockholm, are Nynäshamn, Vaxholm, the village of Ytterby, famous among chemists for naming no fewer than four chemical elements, is situated on Resarö in the Stockholm archipelago. The shipping routes from the Baltic to Stockholm pass through the archipelago, there are three main entrances suitable for deep-draught craft, namely, those near Landsort, Sandhamn, and Söderarm. The landscape has been shaped – and is still being shaped – by post-glacial rebound and it was not until the Viking Age that the archipelago began to assume its present-day contours. The islands rise by about three millimeters each year, in 1719 the archipelago had an estimated population of 2,900, consisting mostly of fishermen. Today the archipelago is a holiday destination with some 50,000 holiday cottages. The Stockholm Archipelago Foundation, dedicated to the preservation of the nature and culture of the archipelago, the inhabitants in the archipelago, from around the mid-1400s to the end of the second world war, were combined farmers and fishermen. Today most of the farms on the islands are closed. Many poets, authors and artists have influenced and fascinated by the Stockholm archipelago. Among them are August Strindberg, Ture Nerman, Roland Svensson, Ernst Didring, björn Ulvaeus and Benny Andersson from the group ABBA wrote most of their songs in a cabin located on the archipelago. Boating is a popular activity with the sailing race Ornö runt being the largest in the archipelago. This annual race, organised by the Tyresö Boat Club, has taken every year since 1973. It is open to anyone with a boat but requires registration. There are different entry classes, with the class being the least competitive. In the winter skaters make excursions over the ice, visiting the larger islands in the archipelago is easy all year round, but during winter period the routes depend on the ice conditions
9.
Baltic Sea
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The Baltic Sea is a sea of the Atlantic Ocean, enclosed by Scandinavia, Finland, the Baltic countries, and the North European Plain. It includes the Gulf of Bothnia, the Bay of Bothnia, the Gulf of Finland, the Gulf of Riga, the sea stretches from 53°N to 66°N latitude and from 10°E to 30°E longitude. The Baltic Sea is connected by waterways to the White Sea via the White Sea Canal. Traffic history Historically, the Kingdom of Denmark collected Sound Dues from ships at the border between the ocean and the land-locked Baltic Sea and they were collected in the Øresund at Kronborg castle near Helsingør, in the Great Belt at Nyborg. In the Little Belt, the site of intake was moved to Fredericia, the narrowest part of Little Belt is the Middelfart Sund near Middelfart. Oceanography Geographers widely agree that the physical border of the Baltic is a line drawn through the southern Danish islands, Drogden-Sill. The Drogden Sill is situated north of Køge Bugt and connects Dragør in the south of Copenhagen to Malmö, it is used by the Øresund Bridge, including the Drogden Tunnel. By this definition, the Danish Straits are part of the entrance, but the Bay of Mecklenburg, another usual border is the line between Falsterbo, Sweden and Stevns Klint, Denmark, as this is the southern border of Øresund. Its also the border between the shallow southern Øresund and notably deeper water, hydrography and biology Drogden Sill sets a limit to Øresund and Darss Sill, and a limit to the Belt Sea. The shallow sills are obstacles to the flow of salt water from the Kattegat into the basins around Bornholm. The Kattegat and the southwestern Baltic Sea are well oxygenated and have a rich biology, the remainder of the Sea is brackish, poor in oxygen and in species. While Tacitus called it Mare Suebicum after the Germanic people called the Suebi, the origin of the latter name is speculative. Adam of Bremen himself compared the sea with a belt, stating that it is so named because it stretches through the land as a belt and he might also have been influenced by the name of a legendary island mentioned in the Natural History of Pliny the Elder. Pliny mentions an island named Baltia with reference to accounts of Pytheas and it is possible that Pliny refers to an island named Basilia in On the Ocean by Pytheas. Baltia also might be derived from belt and mean near belt of sea, meanwhile, others have suggested that the name of the island originates from the Proto-Indo-European root *bhel meaning white, fair. This root and its meaning were retained in both Lithuanian and Latvian. On this basis, a related hypothesis holds that the name originated from this Indo-European root via a Baltic language such as Lithuanian, yet another explanation is that the name originally meant enclosed sea, bay as opposed to open sea. Some Swedish historians believe the name derives from the god Balder of Nordic mythology, in the Middle Ages the sea was known by variety of names
10.
Rus' people
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The Rus were an early medieval group of people who gave their name to the lands of Russia, Ruthenia, and Belarus. Later, Ruriks relative Oleg captured Kiev, founding Rus, academically known as Kievan Rus, the name Rus would then have the same origin as the Finnish and Estonian names for Sweden, Ruotsi and Rootsi. But there was no law among them, and tribe rose against tribe, discord thus ensued among them, and they began to war one against the other. They said to themselves, Let us seek a prince who may rule over us, thus they went overseas to the Varangians, to the Rus. These particular Varangians were known as Rus, just as some are called Swedes, and others Normans and Angles, and still others Gutes, for they were thus named. The Chuds, the Slavs, the Krivichs and the Veps then said to the Rus, Our land is great and rich, come reign as princes, rule over us. Three brothers, with their kinfolk, were selected and they brought with them all the Rus and migrated. Later, the Primary Chronicle tells us, they conquered Kiev, the territory they conquered was named after them as were, eventually, the local people. Ibn Haukal and other early Islamic sources, as well as Muhammad al-Idrisi, mainstream Russian-Soviet historiography, tentatively identified these names with the tribal centres at Kiev, Novgorod and Tmutarakan. Each man has an axe, a sword, and a knife, the swords are broad and grooved, of Frankish sort. Each woman wears on either breast a box of iron, silver, copper, or gold, each box has a ring from which depends a knife. The women wear neck-rings of gold and silver and their most prized ornaments are green glass beads. They string them as necklaces for their women, as for the Rus, they live on an island. That takes three days to round and is covered with thick undergrowth and forests, it is most unhealthy. They harry the Slavs, using ships to reach them, they carry them off as slaves and…sell them and they have no fields but simply live on what they get from the Slavs lands. When a son is born, the father will go up to the baby, sword in hand, throwing it down, he says, I shall not leave you with any property. At least no source says they are part of the Slavic race and his description represents the Rus as a warlike northern tribe. Constantine also enumerates the names of the Dnieper cataracts in both Rhos and in Slavic languages, the Rhos names have distinct Germanic etymology, Essoupi Oulvorsi Gelandri Aeifor Varouforos Leanti Stroukoun
11.
Stones of Mora
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The Stones of Mora was the place where the Swedish kings were elected. The origin of the tradition is unknown, the name Stones of Mora, Mora stenar in Swedish, was originally in singular, Mora sten Stone of Mora, and referred to a king stone on which the newly elected king stood after the election. Later monuments in stone around the Stone of Mora, commemorating different elections, another name often used referring to the place where the king was elected was Mora äng, Meadow of Mora. In Lagga parish about 10 km south-east of Uppsala, but in neighbouring Knivsta Municipality, is Mora äng, the location is at equal distance from the Things of the old folklands Attundaland and Tiundaland. This was the location of Mora Thing, where the Swedish kings were elected, after his election was decided, the king was elevated on top of a flat stone and hailed by his subjects. The law of Uppland and Södermanland states, The three folklands, i. e. Tiundaland, Attundaland and Fjärdhundraland, shall first elect king. Then the election will be sanctioned by the lawspeaker of Uppland and then by all his subordinate lawspeakers in the rest of the kingdom and this process was done during the so-called Eriksgata. The Westrogothic law reminded the Geats that they had to accept this election, the location was on the border of a wetland, and according to Snorri, five kings had been drowned in this wetland, when the people had been displeased. The newly elected king also had to go around Sweden on the Eriksgata and it was thus a sort of federation where the king started with his election at Mora Thing and then travelled throughout the kingdom to have the election confirmed by the local assemblies. The Stone of Mora and many stones which flanked it with inscriptions commemorating the elections of earlier kings, were destroyed in 1515 during the civil war against the Danes. Gustav Vasa and John III are said to have tried to reconstruct the Stones of Mora without success, one of the fragments is known as the Three Crowns stone since it is the earliest known example of the use of Swedens national symbol, the Three Crowns. The fragment is what remains of the stone for the election of Albert of Mecklenburg, there is a document which tells that he was elected at the Stones of Mora in 1275. Magnus Eriksson was elected at the stones on July 8,1319, kristian I, in 1457, he was the last to be elected at the stones. The building where the fragments are contained was constructed by Carl Wijnbladh in 1770, the design was based on a sketch by a schoolchild, one of many emerging from a local contest. Stone of Scone Germanic king Lia Fáil Princes Stone
12.
Sweden
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Sweden, officially the Kingdom of Sweden, is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe. It borders Norway to the west and Finland to the east, at 450,295 square kilometres, Sweden is the third-largest country in the European Union by area, with a total population of 10.0 million. Sweden consequently has a low density of 22 inhabitants per square kilometre. Approximately 85% of the lives in urban areas. Germanic peoples have inhabited Sweden since prehistoric times, emerging into history as the Geats/Götar and Swedes/Svear, Southern Sweden is predominantly agricultural, while the north is heavily forested. Sweden is part of the area of Fennoscandia. The climate is in very mild for its northerly latitude due to significant maritime influence. Today, Sweden is a monarchy and parliamentary democracy, with a monarch as head of state. The capital city is Stockholm, which is also the most populous city in the country, legislative power is vested in the 349-member unicameral Riksdag. Executive power is exercised by the government chaired by the prime minister, Sweden is a unitary state, currently divided into 21 counties and 290 municipalities. Sweden emerged as an independent and unified country during the Middle Ages, in the 17th century, it expanded its territories to form the Swedish Empire, which became one of the great powers of Europe until the early 18th century. Swedish territories outside the Scandinavian Peninsula were gradually lost during the 18th and 19th centuries, the last war in which Sweden was directly involved was in 1814, when Norway was militarily forced into personal union. Since then, Sweden has been at peace, maintaining a policy of neutrality in foreign affairs. The union with Norway was peacefully dissolved in 1905, leading to Swedens current borders, though Sweden was formally neutral through both world wars, Sweden engaged in humanitarian efforts, such as taking in refugees from German-occupied Europe. After the end of the Cold War, Sweden joined the European Union on 1 January 1995 and it is also a member of the United Nations, the Nordic Council, Council of Europe, the World Trade Organization and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. Sweden maintains a Nordic social welfare system that provides health care. The modern name Sweden is derived through back-formation from Old English Swēoþēod and this word is derived from Sweon/Sweonas. The Swedish name Sverige literally means Realm of the Swedes, excluding the Geats in Götaland, the etymology of Swedes, and thus Sweden, is generally not agreed upon but may derive from Proto-Germanic Swihoniz meaning ones own, referring to ones own Germanic tribe
