Södermanland

• 1. Introduction

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  Södermanland sits on the south-eastern coast of Sweden, wedged between Lake Mälaren to the north and the Baltic Sea to the south. Its name translates directly as "the Land of the Southern Men," a label given by the people of Uppland to their neighbours living just below them. That simple geographic identity conceals a remarkable depth: a province with 96,000 known ancient remains, a history of royal intrigue that stretches back more than a thousand years, and a population today of over 1.3 million people.

  What made this stretch of flat, lake-dotted land so important to Swedish kings? How did a single banquet in Nyköping come to define treachery in the medieval Scandinavian imagination? And why does the 6th of June, chosen in a cathedral in this province, still mark Sweden's national holiday? The answers reach from the Stone Age to the present day.

• 2. Land and Water

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  Skogsbyås, at 124 metres above sea level, is the highest point in Södermanland, which tells you something important about the lay of the land. The terrain is predominantly flat, characterised by woods on the elevated ground and water-filled hollows in between. Three distinct water regions shape the province's interior geography.

  To the west, Lake Hjälmaren drains into Mälaren, forming one hydrological corridor. The peninsula of Södertörn, in the eastern part of the province, holds a cluster of smaller lakes: Bornsjön at 6.5 square kilometres, Magelungen at 2.9, and Orlången at 2.5. A third water region reaches southward toward the Kolmården forest, which also marks the border with the neighbouring province of Östergötland.

  Both the city of Stockholm and Stockholm County straddle the old provincial boundary, with their southern halves lying in Södermanland and their northern halves in Uppland. That division means most of Södermanland's population of 1,320,477 as of the 31st of December 2016 lives within Stockholm County rather than within Södermanland County itself. With 160 people per square kilometre, Södermanland is the most densely populated of Sweden's historical provinces, a fact almost entirely driven by Stockholm's urban spread.

• 3. Layers of the Deep Past

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  The earliest settlers arrived in Södermanland during the Stone Age, and the province has held onto their traces with unusual fidelity. Among the 96,000 recorded ancient remains are grave fields, coins, and knives, with particularly prominent finds from the Neolithic period and the Nordic Bronze Age. Evidence thins out again in the early Iron Age, before 1 AD, but returns with striking abundance in the 5th and 6th centuries AD, when gold objects appear in the record in significant numbers.

  In 1774, a treasure weighing 12 kilograms of gold from that era was unearthed on a farm at Tureholm, a single find that captures just how wealthy these communities could be.

  The Viking Age left a different kind of monument. Around 300 runestones from that period remain in the province, a count second only to the neighbouring province of Uppland. The oldest of these stones is the Skåäng Runestone, dated to the late 6th century. Not far from Gripsholm Castle stands the Gripsholm Runestone, a typical Viking-era memorial stone that commemorates an earlier expedition.

• 4. Cities, Bishops, and Royal Privilege

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  Nyköping shows up in the archaeological record as a settlement with boat houses large enough for longboats, structures that were in active use for roughly 400 years across the Vendel era and the Viking Age. Excavations conducted in 2010 and 2011 at the Åkroken 3 site documented these remains in a report published in 2016.

  Södertälje became Södermanland's oldest city with formal city status, a privilege granted around the year 1000. Nyköping followed in 1187. Stockholm received its privilege in the 13th century. Strängnäs, Torshälla, and Trosa joined the list in the 14th century.

  Strängnäs also became the province's episcopal seat around 1100, hosting both a bishop and a cathedral. For a long time it was the sole diocese for the entire province; it was not until 1942 that the Diocese of Stockholm was established, absorbing parts of Strängnäs's former territory.

  King Magnus Ladulås received the province in 1266 and settled at the manor in Nyköping, which grew into one of the most important cities in medieval Sweden. The coronation of King Gustav Vasa on the 6th of June 1523 took place in the Strängnäs cathedral, and that date eventually became Sweden's national holiday.

• 5. Betrayal at Nyköping

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  In 1317, Nyköping hosted an event that has never been forgotten in Swedish memory. King Birger invited both of his brothers to a banquet, had them murdered, and secured sole possession of the crown along with revenge for what he considered earlier wrongs done to him. The Nyköping Banquet, as the episode came to be called, stands as one of the most notorious acts of fraternal treachery in the country's medieval history.

  Royal connection to the province was not uniformly sinister. The list of Dukes and Duchesses of Södermanland extends from Prince Magnus, who held the title from 1252 before becoming king in 1275, through to Prince Alexander, who holds the title in the present day. Charles IX, a son of Gustav Vasa, was especially attached to the province: he built up its castles and set early industrial enterprises in motion there. Crown Prince Gustav Adolph held the duchy from 1604 to 1607, and Crown Prince Oscar held it from 1811 until he became king in 1844.

• 6. Art, Heritage, and the Sacred

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  Gripsholm Castle is widely regarded as the most impressive of the province's surviving buildings. The castle carries a well-known collection and draws visitors from across the country.

  The painter David von Krafft left one particularly striking record of Södermanland's merchant class. His largest known work, the Hildebrand family portrait of 1713, hangs at Nynäs Manor in the province. The painting depicts the merchant and industrialist Henrik Jacob Hildebrand and his wife Anna Sofia Amya at their 50th wedding anniversary, surrounded by more than twenty children and grandchildren. Portraits of some deceased relatives appear on the walls in the background of the scene.

  The cemetery of Skogskyrkogården, located in southern Stockholm and therefore within Södermanland's historical limits, holds UNESCO World Heritage status. Medieval churches, runestones, and graveyards remain scattered across the province's countryside, a physical reminder that the coat of arms itself dates to 1560: a black griffin on a gold field, beaked and armed in red, and crowned with a ducal coronet. The same arms were formally granted to Södermanland County in 1940.