Stockholm Palace or the Royal Palace is the official residence and major royal palace of the Swedish monarch (the actual residence of King Carl XVI Gustaf and Queen Silvia is at Drottningholm Palace). Stockholm Palace is on Stadsholmen, in Gamla stan in the capital, Stockholm. It neighbours the Riksdag building. The offices of the King, the other members of the Swedish Royal Family, and the Royal Court of Sweden are here. The palace is used for representative purposes by the King whilst performing his duties as the head of state.
As of 2009 the interior of the palace consists of 1,430 rooms of which 660 have windows. The palace contains apartments for the Royal families, representation and festivities such as the State Apartments, the Guest Apartments and the Bernadotte Apartments. More features are the Hall of State, the Royal Chapel, the Treasury with the Regalia of Sweden, Livrustkammaren and the Tre Kronor Museum in the remaining cellar vaults from the former castle. The National Library of Sweden was housed in the northeast wing, the Biblioteksflygeln (the Library Wing), until 1878. As of 2014 it houses the Bernadotte Library. The Slottsarkivet is housed in the Chancery Wing. In the palace are the offices of the Royal Court of Sweden, a place of work for approximately 200 employees. The Royal Guards have guarded the palace and the Royal Family since 1523. A comprehensive renovation of the facade began in 2011, to repair weather damaged parts made from sandstone. The repairs are estimated to cost approximately 500 million crowns (about US$77 million) over a period of 22 years.
Activities
The palace is a place of work for about 200 full-time employees, more than half of whom are female. The palace also hires more personnel for dinners, during the summer and as guides.
The Royal Court of Sweden
The palace houses facilities for the offices that are part of the Royal Court of Sweden; the organization affiliated to the Swedish Head of State and the Royal House, and are also responsible for preserving and showing the cultural heritage of the Swedish monarchy. The Royal Court is led by the Marshal of the Realm and had 216 full-time employees in 2009.
Museums
The museums housed in the palace are: Livrustkammaren, Gustav III’s Museum of Antiquities, The Treasury and The Tre Kronor Museum.
Archive and library
In the Chancery Wing at the palace is the Slottsarkivet. The archive was started in 1893, and since 1964, it is a depot sorting under the administration of the National Archives of Sweden. The archive also contains records from the Royal Court and the Crown palaces in Sweden.[92] In the northeast wing of the palace is the Bernadottebiblioteket (the Bernadotte library, a research library).
The Royal Guards
The Royal Guards is a guard detail that is part guard of honour for the king and part guards for the castle. The guard is also a section of the military emergency management in Stockholm. The Royal Guards are present at state ceremonies, visits by foreign heads of state or fleets. The guards were established by King Gustav I in 1523, to keep the order in the entire city, the part that is now Gamla Stan. The changing of the guards is a ceremony and tourist attraction held at the Outer Courtyard of the palace, seen by approximately 800,000 people each year.
The Royal Gift Shop
The Royal Gift Shop is the gift and souvenir shop for the palace with products connected to the objects in the royal collections. A large part of the items are books about the royal cultural heritage on subjects such as history, architecture, biographies and research. The shop is in the southwestern curved wing and is accessed from the Outer Courtyard.
