Local short name form

Official name

Area

Population

Capital

Currency

International telephone access code

ISO 3166 country codes

Car nationality plate code

Internet country code

GRC Country Code

   1.234,45

(where , indicates the decimal separator and . the thousands separator)

   Note: This section last updated 17th June 2021

   yyyy-mm-dd

Other forms may be found such as:

   dd/mm-yyyy
   dd/mm yyyy
   dd/mm-yy
   dd/mm/yy

In written Swedish, the 24-hour clock notation is usually used.

   14:32 

The official language, Swedish , is spoken by 93%. Finnish is spoken by 3%. There are some 3 000 Romani -speakers and 11 000 Saami (Sámi) -speakers (in 5 different forms) in the far north.

Generally in Sweden, you can indicate on your correspondence whether the contents are private or may be opened by others. Two formats are used. The following format indicates that your mail may be opened by others:

   Company name
   Department name
   Contact name
   Rest of address

The following format indicates that the mail is private and personal:

   Contact name
   Company name
   Department name 
   Rest of address

Swedish law states that give names shall not be approved if they can cause offence or can be supposed to cause discomfort for the one using it, or names which for some obvious reason are not suitable as a given name. Protest names such as Brfxxccxxmnpcccclllmmnprxvclmnckssqlbb11116 (pronounced Albin) and Metallica have been struck down by this law.

Married females may take their husband’s family name or may retain their own pre-marriage family name, or use both. Some choose an unrelated surname.

   Tables of names can be acquired: given names , surnames/family names , family name prefixes , forms of address , job titles 

Swedish company types include:

   AB (Aktiebolag) (limited liability stock corporation)
   AB (Publ) (Publikt aktiebolag) (public stock corporation)
   Enkelt bolag (Regulated partnership)
   EF (Enskild Firma)
   EF (Ekonomisk Förening - Economic association 
   -förening - association.
   HB (Handelsbolag – trading partnership)
   Ideell förening (non-profit organization)
   KB (Kommanditbolag – limited partnership)
   Kooperativ - Co-operative 

   Comprehensive tables of these strings can be acquired – see http://www.grcdi.nl/addresses.htm 

   Note: This section last updated 4th February 2023

Addresses are written in the following format:

      Recipient name
      Thoroughfare[ ]number 
      postal code[  ]TOWN NAME

For example:

There should be two spaces between the postal code and the settlement name.

Large companies have unique postal codes and their addresses contain no street address and therefore have only two lines. For example:

Thoroughfare types are written after the thoroughfare name, without a space between them. As with other Scandinavian languages, the definite article does not appear as a separate word in Swedish but as a suffix (-en) at the end of a word.

The settlement name to be given in the address is that of the post‑office distribution centre. Villages within an area served by a distribution centre in a larger settlement do not have to be separately mentioned on the address - the name of the larger centre with the postal code is sufficient. Isolated farmsteads, of which Sweden has many, are often addressed without a street address. The following form would be used:

   Recipient name 
   Village[, ]Farmstead name 
   postal code[ ]TOWN NAME

For example:

For rural addresses in fifteen municipalities in northern Sweden, distance addressing may be used. The numbers are usually hyphenated in this way: 215-20. The first digit shows the distance along a road from a fixed point divided by ten (i.e. 215 indicates approximated 2150 metres). The number after the hyphen was designed to show distance from the side of the road, but in practice these may also just be sequential numbers. In any case delivery is to roadside boxes.^[2]

The Swedish postal authorities prefer that ’SE-’ is placed before the postal codes, but the rules of the country from which the mail is sent must define if you do this - please refer to Formatting an international address.

   A table containing information about the relevant position of elements within address blocks can be acquired 

Thoroughfare types

   Note: This section last updated 19th April 2024

   Comprehensive tables of these strings can be acquired – see http://www.grcdi.nl/addresses.htm 

Other elements commonly found in address databases

This is written as Box. Postlåda is also found.

Postal codes (Postnummer), introduced 12th May 1968, consist of 5 digits, beginning with a number between 1 and 9, and written in the fol­lowing structure:

   999[ ]99

The first three digits are the outward sorting code, the last two the inward sorting code.

The first digits usually indicate the borough, the last indicate areas or streets within the borough. With larger cities, a whole range of postal codes exists and only the first digit is the same for the whole city. In medium-sized towns the first two digits are likely to be the same, whilst all three digits will be the same in more rural areas. Large companies and post-office boxes may have indi­vidual postal codes. Although the first three digits indicate an area, the name of the town given may differ. For example:

   311 42  FALKENBERG

   311 96  HEBERG

There are no postal codes in Sweden beginning with these numbers:

   0, 32, 48, 49, 99

The Swedish postal authorities prefer that ’SE-’ is placed before the postal codes, but the rules of the country from which the mail is sent must define if you do this - please refer to Formatting an international address.

   Metadata containing postal code formatting rules, exceptions and regular expressions can be acquired 

Sweden - Postal code format graphic

Sweden - Postal code format

Sweden - Postal code specifics

Sweden - Postal code regular expression

Sweden - Postal code level of coverage

Sweden - Postal code map

   Note: This section last updated 23rd April 2015

Sami speakers have their own versions of place names in the north of the country.

Refer to Exonyms in Sweden for full lists of place names in Sweden in other languages.

Place name sign in Swedish and Sami. Source: Wikipedia

   Alternate place name forms/postal code tables can be acquired at http:www.grcdi.nl/settlements.htm 

   Other language place name data can be acquired at http://www.grcdi.nl/otherlanguageplace.htm 

Sweden has 21 counties (Län ). The change from 24 to 21 Län occurred on 1^st January 1999. Six län were lost (Alvsborgs, Göteborgs och Bohus, Kopparbergs, Kristianstads, Malmöhus and Skaraborgs). Three new län were created (Dalanas, Skåne and Västra Götelands) . They are not used in addresses. They are listed below. Note that the postal code area equivalents are not exact, they exclude postal code areas which clearly cover ground in more than one county, and place names along the county borders may be in different postal code areas.

County	Approximate postal code area
Blekinge Län	37
Dalarnas	77-79
Gävleborgs Län	80-82
Gotlands Län	62
Hallands Län	30-31
Jämtlands Län	83
Jönköpings Län	33
Kalmar Län	38-39
Kronobergs Län	34-36
Norbottens Län	95-98
Örebro Län	69-71
Östergötlands Län	55-56, 58-60
Skåne	20-27, 29
Södermanlands Län	63-64
Stockholms Län	1
Uppsala Län	75-76
Värmlands Län	65, 67-68
Västerbottens Län	91-94
Västernorrlands Län	85-89
Västra Götelands	40-47, 51-54
Västmanlands Län	72-73

   This regions/postal code data can be acquired as a data file 

Administrative districts graphic

Swedish fixed line numbers have a total length of between 7 and 9 digits when called from abroad. Mobile numbers have 9 digits and have the area codes 70, 72, 73 and 76.

   Tables of telephone number information/formats can be acquired – see http://www.grcdi.nl/telephone.htm