Europe · The early medieval west
Kingdom of Sweden
drawn on the map AD 980–1401, 1502–1520, 1526–1611, 1905–2024
Swedish Konungariket Sverige. Medieval Sweden coalesced under figures such as Birger Jarl (founder of Stockholm, mid-13th century).
- Shown on the map
- AD 980–1401, 1502–1520, 1526–1611, 1905–2024 (4 periods)
- Peak area
- 745k km²
- Region
- Europe
Overview
Swedish Konungariket Sverige. Medieval Sweden coalesced under figures such as Birger Jarl (founder of Stockholm, mid-13th century). Sweden joined the Kalmar Union (1397) but chafed under Danish dominance. The Stockholm Bloodbath (8–10 November 1520), Christian II's mass execution of Swedish nobles, provoked the revolt of Gustav Vasa, elected king on 6 June 1523, ending the union and founding the Vasa dynasty; Gustav made the monarchy hereditary and led the Swedish Reformation. Under Gustavus Adolphus (Gustav II Adolf), Sweden became a great power: his intervention in the Thirty Years' War and victory at Breitenfeld (17 September 1631) secured Protestantism in Germany, though he fell at Lützen (1632). The Swedish Empire peaked before Charles XII's defeat at Poltava (8 July 1709) in the Great Northern War broke Swedish supremacy (concluded 1721). Sweden lost Finland to Russia in 1809, then adopted a new constitution and, in 1810, the French marshal Bernadotte as crown prince—founder of the Bernadotte dynasty (from 1818, Charles XIV John), which reigns still; Sweden acquired Norway in 1814 (union to 1905).
Common questions
- What was the Kingdom of Sweden?
- Swedish Konungariket Sverige. Medieval Sweden coalesced under figures such as Birger Jarl (founder of Stockholm, mid-13th century).
- When is the Kingdom of Sweden shown on the map?
- The border data draws the Kingdom of Sweden AD 980–1401, 1502–1520, 1526–1611, 1905–2024, in 4 separate periods. The source samples borders at fixed dates, so a span can begin late or run on past the end.
- How large was the Kingdom of Sweden?
- At its greatest extent drawn on this map, the Kingdom of Sweden covered about 745,000 km². That is the largest area the border data gives it across the years it is drawn, not necessarily its greatest extent in history.
Sources
This compendium cites its sources once for the whole document rather than per territory. Its bibliography names the English Wikipedia articles for each territory as the primary basis, with Encyclopædia Britannica, the World History Encyclopedia, German History in Documents and Images, national institutions such as the Swiss Federal Council and the National Museum of Denmark, and the scholarship of Peter H. Wilson and Joachim Whaley on the Holy Roman Empire. The article this entry is anchored on:
- Wikipedia — Sweden en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweden
This entry was last updated .
This entry was researched and drafted with AI from the sources above, and has not been reviewed by a historian. How entries are made
Text available under CC BY-SA 4.0: reuse it with a credit to The World Through Time and a link to this page. Passages drawing on the Wikipedia articles listed above are also licensed CC BY-SA 4.0 by their contributors.
Border geometry for the map itself comes from Cliopatria v0.12 (Seshat Global History Databank, CC-BY-4.0).
Further reading in Knowledge
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