Gothenburg is the second-largest city in Sweden, fifth-largest in the Nordic countries, and capital of the Västra Götaland County. It is situated by Kattegat, on the west coast of Sweden, and has a population of approximately 570,000 in the city proper and about 1 million inhabitants in the metropolitan area.

Gothenburg was founded as a heavily fortified, primarily Dutch, trading colony, by royal charter in 1621 by King Gustavus Adolphus. In addition to the generous privileges (e.g. tax relaxation) given to his Dutch allies from the then-ongoing Thirty Years’ War, the king also attracted significant numbers of his German and Scottish allies to populate his only town on the western coast. At a key strategic location at the mouth of the Göta älv, where Scandinavia’s largest drainage basin enters the sea, the Port of Gothenburg is now the largest port in the Nordic countries.

Parks and nature

Gothenburg has several parks and nature reserves ranging in size from tens of square metres to hundreds of hectares. It also has many green areas that are not designated as parks or reserves.

Selection of parks:

• Kungsparken, 13 ha (32 acres), built between 1839 and 1861, surrounds the canal that circles the city centre.
• Garden Society of Gothenburg, a park and horticultural garden, is located next to Kungsportsavenyen. Founded in 1842 by the Swedish king Carl XIV Johan and on initiative of the amateur botanist Henric Elof von Normann, the park has a noted rose garden with some 4,000 roses of 1,900 cultivars.
• Slottsskogen, 137 ha (340 acres), was created in 1874 by August Kobb. It has a free “open” zoo that includes harbor seals, penguins, horses, pigs, deer, moose, goats, and many birds. The Natural History Museum (Naturhistoriska Museet) and the city’s oldest observatory are located in the park. The annual Way Out West festival is held in the park.
• Änggårdsbergens naturreservat, 320 ha (790 acres), was bought in 1840 by pharmacist Arvid Gren, and donated in 1963 to the city by Sven and Carl Gren Broberg, who stated the area must remain a nature and bird reserve. It lies partly in Mölndal.
• Delsjöområdets naturreservat, about 760 ha (1,900 acres), has been in use since the 17th century as a farming area; significant forest management was carried out in the late 19th century. Skatås gym and motionscentrum is situated here.
• Rya Skogs Naturreservat, 17 ha (42 acres), became a protected area in 1928. It contains remnants of a defensive wall built in the mid- to late-17th century.
• Keillers park was donated by James Keiller in 1906. He was the son of Scottish Alexander Keiller, who founded the Götaverken shipbuilding company.
• S A Hedlunds park: Sven Adolf Hedlund, newspaper publisher and politician, bought the 15 ha (37 acres) Bjurslätt farm in 1857, and in 1928 it was given to the city.
• Hisingsparken is Gothenburg’s largest park.
• Flunsåsparken, built in 1950, has many free activities during the summer such as concerts and theatre.
• Gothenburg Botanical Garden, 175 ha (430 acres), opened in 1923. It won an award in 2003, and in 2006 was third in “The most beautiful garden in Europe” competition. It has around 16,000 species of plants and trees. The greenhouses contain around 4,500 species including 1,600 orchids. It is considered to be one of the most important botanical gardens in Europe with three stars in the French Guide Rouge.

Culture

The sea, trade, and industrial history of the city are evident in the cultural life of Gothenburg. It is also a popular destination for tourists on the Swedish west coast.

Museums

Many of the cultural institutions, as well as hospitals and the university, were created by donations from rich merchants and industrialists, for example the Röhsska Museum. On 29 December 2004, the Museum of World Culture opened near Korsvägen. Museums include the Gothenburg Museum of Art, and several museums of sea and navigation history, natural history, the sciences, and East India. Aeroseum, close to the Göteborg City Airport, is an aircraft museum in a former military underground air force base. The Volvo museum has exhibits of the history of Volvo and the development from 1927 until today. Products shown include cars, trucks, marine engines, and buses.

Universeum is a public science centre that opened in 2001, the largest of its kind in Scandinavia. It is divided into six sections, each containing experimental workshops and a collection of reptiles, fish, and insects. Universeum occasionally host debates between Swedish secondary-school students and Nobel Prize laureates or other scholars.

Leisure and entertainment

The most noted attraction is the amusement park Liseberg, located in the central part of the city. It is the largest amusement park in Scandinavia by number of rides, and was chosen as one of the top ten amusement parks in the world (2005) by Forbes. It is the most popular attraction in Sweden by number of visitors per year (more than 3 million).

There are a number of independent theatre ensembles in the city, besides institutions such as Gothenburg City Theatre, Backa Theatre (youth theatre), and Folkteatern.

The main boulevard is called Kungsportsavenyn (commonly known as Avenyn, “The Avenue”). It is about 1 km (0.6 mi) long and starts at Götaplatsen – which is the location of the Gothenburg Museum of Art, the city’s theatre, and the city library, as well as the concert hall – and stretches all the way to Kungsportsplatsen in the old city centre of Gothenburg, crossing a canal and a small park. The Avenyn was created in the 1860s and 1870s as a result of an international architecture contest, and is the product of a period of extensive town planning and remodelling. Avenyn has Gothenburg’s highest concentration of pubs and clubs. Gothenburg’s largest shopping centre (8th largest in Sweden), Nordstan, is located in central Gothenburg.

Gothenburg’s Haga district is known for its picturesque wooden houses and its cafés serving the well-known Haga bulle – a large cinnamon roll similar to the kanelbulle.

Five Gothenburg restaurants have a star in the 2008 Michelin Guide: 28 +, Basement, Fond, Kock & Vin, Fiskekrogen, and Sjömagasinet.^[96] The city has a number of star chefs – over the past decade, seven of the Swedish Chef of the Year awards have been won by people from Gothenburg.^[97]

The Gustavus Adolphus pastry, eaten every 6 November in Sweden, Gustavus Adolphus Day, is especially connected to, and appreciated in, Gothenburg because the city was founded by King Gustavus Adolphus.

One of Gothenburg’s most popular natural tourist attractions is the southern Gothenburg archipelago, which is a set of several islands that can be reached by ferry boats mainly operating from Saltholmen. Within the archipelago are the Älvsborg fortress, Vinga and Styrsö islands.

Festivals and fairs

The annual Gothenburg Film Festival, is the largest film festival in Scandinavia. The Gothenburg Book Fair, held each year in September. It is the largest literary festival in Scandinavia, and the second largest book fair in Europe. A radical bookfair is held at the same time at the Syndikalistiskt Forum.

The International Science Festival in Gothenburg is an annual festival since April 1997, in central Gothenburg with thought-provoking science activities for the public. The festival is visited by about 100,000 people each year.^[102] This makes it the largest popular-science event in Sweden and one of the leading popular-science events in Europe.

Citing the financial crisis, the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions moved the 2010 World Library and Information Congress, previously to be held in Brisbane, Australia, to Gothenburg. The event took place on 10–15 August 2010.

Architecture

Many buildings in the old part of the city were built along canals.

Very few houses are left from the 17th century when the city was founded, since all but the military and royal houses were built of wood. A rare exception is the Skansen Kronan.

The first major architecturally interesting period is the 18th century when the East India Company made Gothenburg an important trade city. Imposing stone houses in Neo-Classical style were erected around the canals. One example from this period is the East India House, which today houses the Göteborg City Museum.

In the 19th century, the wealthy bourgeoisie began to move outside the city walls which had protected the city. The style now was an eclectic, academic, somewhat overdecorated style which the middle-class favoured. The working class lived in the overcrowded city district Haga in wooden houses.

In the 19th century, the first comprehensive town plan after the founding of city was created, which led to the construction of the main street, Kungsportsavenyen. Perhaps the most significant type of houses of the city, Landshövdingehusen, were built in the end of the 19th century – three-storey houses with the first floor in stone and the other two in wood.

The early 20th century, characterized by the National Romantic style, was rich in architectural achievements. Masthugg Church is a noted example of the style of this period. In the early 1920s, on the city’s 300th anniversary, the Götaplatsen square with its Neoclassical look was built.

After this, the predominant style in Gothenburg and rest of Sweden was Functionalism which especially dominated the suburbs such as Västra Frölunda and Bergsjön. The Swedish functionalist architect Uno Åhrén served as city planner from 1932 through 1943. In the 1950s, the big stadium Ullevi was built when Sweden hosted the 1958 FIFA World Cup.

The modern architecture of the city has been formed by such architects as Gert Wingårdh, who started as a Post-modernist in the 1980s.

Gustaf Adolf Square is a town square located in central Gothenburg. Noted buildings on the square include Gothenburg City Hall (formerly the stock exchange, opened in 1849) and the Nordic Classicism law court. The main canal of Gothenburg also flanks the square.

Characteristic buildings

The Gothenburg Central Station is in the centre of the city, next to Nordstan and Drottningtorget. The building has been renovated and expanded numerous times since the grand opening in October 1858. In 2003, a major reconstruction was finished which brought the 19th-century building into the 21st century expanding the capacity for trains, travellers, and shopping. Not far from the central station is the Skanskaskrapan, or more commonly known as “The Lipstick”. It is 86 m (282 ft) high with 22 floors and coloured in red-white stripes. The skyscraper was designed by Ralph Erskine and built by Skanska in the late 1980s as the headquarters for the company.

By the shore of the Göta Älv at Lilla Bommen is The Göteborg Opera. It was completed in 1994. The architect Jan Izikowitz was inspired by the landscape and described his vision as “Something that makes your mind float over the squiggling landscape like the wings of a seagull.”

Feskekörka, or Fiskhallen, is an indoor fishmarket by the Rosenlundskanalen in central Gothenburg. Feskekörkan was opened on 1 November 1874 and its name from the building’s resemblance to a Gothic church. The Gothenburg city hall is in the Beaux-Arts architectural style. The Gothenburg Synagogue at Stora Nygatan, near Drottningtorget, was built in 1855 according to the designs of the German architect August Krüger.

The Gunnebo House is a country house located to the south of Gothenburg, in Mölndal. It was built in a neoclassical architecture towards the end of the 18th century. Created in the early 1900s was the Vasa Church. It is located in Vasastan and is built of granite in a neo-Romanesque style.

Another noted construction is Brudaremossen TV Tower, one of the few partially guyed towers in the world.

Economy

Due to Gothenburg’s advantageous location in the centre of Scandinavia, trade and shipping have always played a major role in the city’s economic history, and they continue to do so. Gothenburg port has come to be the largest harbour in Scandinavia.

Apart from trade, the second pillar of Gothenburg has traditionally been manufacturing and industry, which significantly contributes to the city’s wealth. Major companies operating plants in the area include SKF, Volvo (both cars and trucks), and Ericsson. Volvo Cars is the largest employer in Gothenburg, not including jobs in supply companies. The blue-collar industries which have dominated the city for long are still important factors in the city’s economy, but they are being gradually replaced by high-tech industries.

Banking and finance are also important, as well as the event and tourist industry.

Gothenburg is the terminus of the Valdemar-Göteborg gas pipeline, which brings natural gas from the North Sea fields to Sweden, through Denmark.

Historically, Gothenburg was home base from the 18th century of the Swedish East India Company. From its founding until the late 1970s, the city was a world leader in shipbuilding, with such shipyards as Eriksbergs Mekaniska Verkstad, Götaverken, Arendalsvarvet, and Lindholmens varv. Gothenburg is classified as a global city by GaWC, with a ranking of Gamma. The city has been ranked as the 12th-most inventive city in the world by Forbes.

Education

Gothenburg has two universities, both of which started as colleges founded by private donations in the 19th century. The University of Gothenburg has about 38,000 students and is one of the largest universities in Scandinavia, and one of the most versatile in Sweden. Chalmers University of Technology is a well-known university located in Johanneberg 2 km (1 mi) south of the inner city, lately also established at Lindholmen in Norra Älvstranden, Hisingen.

In 2015, there were ten adult education centres in Gothenburg: Agnesbergs folkhögskola, Arbetarrörelsens folkhögskola i Göteborg, Finska folkhögskolan, Folkhögskolan i Angered, Göteborgs folkhögskola, Kvinnofolkhögskolan, Mo Gård folkhögskola, S:ta Birgittas folkhögskola, Västra Götalands folkhögskolor and Wendelsbergs folkhögskola.

In 2015, there were 49 high schools Gothenburg. Some of the more notable schools are Hvitfeldtska gymnasiet, Göteborgs Högre Samskola, Sigrid Rudebecks gymnasium and Polhemsgymnasiet. Some high-schools are also connected to large Swedish corporations, such as SKF Technical high-school that is owned by SKF and Gothenburg’s technical high-school that is jointly owned by Volvo, Volvo Cars and Gothenburg municipality.

There are two folkhögskola that teach fine arts: Domen and Goteborg Folkhögskola.