Stockholm
Hotels in Stockholm- Code:AB
- Type:county
- Native name:Stockholm County
- Population:2.5M (2026)
- Area:16,720 km²
- Capital:Stockholm
Introduction
Stockholm County (Stockholms län) is Sweden's most populous region, wrapped around the capital where the fresh water of Lake Mälaren meets the salt of the Baltic Sea. Home to roughly 2.4 million people, it is the economic, political and cultural heart of the country — but its defining feature is water. The city itself is built across fourteen islands, and beyond it the county dissolves eastward into the vast Stockholm archipelago, a scatter of some 30,000 islands, islets and skerries running out to the open Baltic, and westward into the bays and headlands of Lake Mälaren, dotted with royal palaces and the burial mounds of Sweden's Viking age. This is a region where nature is never far — commuter boats and trains reach genuine wilderness, historic towns and swimming coves within an hour of the centre — and where summer life migrates almost entirely onto the water.
Overview
Stockholm the city, spread across its islands between lake and sea, is the gateway and the base — but the county's real magic lies in the water and land around it, and that is where a few extra days pay off. The great set piece is the archipelago: 30,000 islands reached by classic white ferries, from the fortress town of Vaxholm to the sailors' haven of Sandhamn and countless summer-cottage skerries in between. Across Lake Mälaren to the west, a UNESCO-listed royal palace, Sweden's oldest town and a Viking trading port sit within easy reach by boat and train. Add old-growth forests you can walk into straight from a commuter line and the whole region becomes an argument for slowing down. Summer, with its endless northern daylight, is the season it was made for.
Discover Stockholm
The archipelago is the county's crown jewel and the experience that most defines a Stockholm summer. Some 30,000 islands fan out from the city into the Baltic, grading from lush, wooded inner isles to bare pink-granite skerries at the open-sea edge, and the classic white Waxholmsbolaget ferries have linked them for generations. Vaxholm, an hour out and reachable by bus or boat, is the archipelago's pretty gateway town, guarded by a nineteenth-century island fortress. Beyond it lie islands for every mood: Fjäderholmarna barely twenty minutes from the centre for an easy evening trip; Grinda and Finnhamn for hiking, swimming and hostels; Sandhamn for sailing and its famous regatta; and remote Möja and Utö for the quiet outer skerries. Renting a kayak, joining a sailing charter or simply riding the ferries with a swim and a fika along the way is the quintessential thing to do here.
Ways to Experience This Destination
Thirty thousand islands reached by classic white ferries — the fortress town of Vaxholm, the sailing haven of Sandhamn, near-city Fjäderholmarna and remote outer skerries — for swimming, kayaking, hiking and the quintessential Stockholm summer.
The UNESCO-listed royal residence of Drottningholm with its Chinese Pavilion and working eighteenth-century Court Theatre, reached by summer steamboat, plus the Mälaren palaces of Rosersberg and Steninge — baroque grandeur on the water.
Birka on Björkö, Sweden's first town and a UNESCO Viking trading site of ramparts and burial mounds, and Sigtuna, the country's oldest surviving town with its wooden main street and eleventh-century runestones — the Mälaren valley where Sweden began.
Old-growth forest at Tyresta National Park, the Roslagen coast and the green Royal National City Park, all within reach of a commuter line — and the Swedish allemansrätten that lets everyone walk, swim and forage freely.
Carl Milles' clifftop sculpture garden at Millesgården on Lidingö and the contemporary art hall of Artipelag on its archipelago shore, plus the ceramics heritage of Gustavsberg — art paired with forest and sea beyond the city centre.
Swimming coves, sailing and kayaking across lake and Baltic, ferry-hopping with a fika, and the Midsummer festivities that migrate the whole region onto the islands — Stockholm County lives on the water in the long northern summer.
Frequently asked questions
Cities in Stockholm
This overview comes from Visaja's worldwide missions database (visaja.com), checked against official government sources; for binding answers, the mission itself always has the final word.