Facts for Kids

Vasa Museum holds a nearly whole warship from the 1600s. The ship sank long ago and was brought back up so you can see how big and detailed it is. Nearby, the Nationalmuseum shows paintings and sculptures from the 1500s to now, including famous artists from Sweden and other countries.

For modern art, the Moderna Museet displays bold and unusual works. There are also fun, special museums like ABBA: The Museum and Fotografiska for photography. If you like discovering different kinds of art, Stockholm has many places to explore.

Carl Michael Bellman was a famous 18th-century songwriter whose ballads about life in Stockholm are still sung and told today. Music and words often mix in this city: stories, poems, and songs travel together. For example, some authors’ tales have been turned into songs or stage shows that children and families enjoy.

Long before Bellman, writing in the area goes back to the Viking Age when people carved runestones. Later, kings and the city’s schools helped spread books and songs. Over time, Stockholm became a place where singers, writers, and composers meet and share new ideas.

Stockholm has four clear seasons: spring, summer, autumn, and winter. In spring the trees wake up and flowers appear. Summer is warm and pleasant, with many people spending time outside. Autumn brings colorful leaves, and winter can be cold with some snow.

The sea helps keep temperatures from being too extreme, so summers are not very hot and winters are cold but not as severe as farther inland. Rain falls fairly often through the year, so a light jacket or umbrella is useful when you explore parks and streets.

Skansen is a special museum because it was the world’s first open-air museum and it has a zoo. It opened in 1891 and shows how people in Sweden lived before big factories and modern cities. You can walk through old houses, watch crafts, and see traditional animals.

Stockholm is full of museums—about a hundred of them—so there’s something for everyone. Some focus on art, some on nature, and some on history. Many museums have activities just for kids, so you can learn by seeing, touching, and trying things out.

Because Stockholm is far north, the hours of daylight change a lot through the year. In the middle of winter there are only about six hours of daylight, so mornings and afternoons feel short. In June and early July the days are very long — close to eighteen hours — so evenings stay bright for a long time.

Around the winter solstice the sun can set very early, and in mid-December it may go down before three o’clock. In summer the sun dips a little below the horizon at night, so the sky often stays a bright blue even after sunset. The city does not get the midnight sun, which happens farther north.

Stockholm sits on Sweden’s east coast where Lake Mälaren pours into the Baltic Sea. The oldest part of the city is on several islands connected by bridges. You can stand on a quay and see boats, water, and narrow streets at the same time.

More than a quarter of the city is water and many parks make the rest feel green. The city sits in a region of low hills and forests, so you can walk from the center to quiet woods or islands in a short time. Because of its place by the sea, Stockholm feels both like a city and like a group of islands.

Stockholm appears again and again in books for all ages. Many Swedish writers set stories in its narrow lanes, grand buildings, and busy neighborhoods. You can find children’s tales, plays, and modern mysteries that use the city as a backdrop.

The city is also linked to the Nobel Prize in Literature, which brings attention to writers from all over the world. Libraries and bookshops in Stockholm are lively places where readers of every age can find stories about the city or stories that travel far from it. What kind of Stockholm story would you like to read?

Gamla Stan is Stockholm’s oldest neighborhood and a great place to see how the city grew. Its narrow streets and tall, colorful houses feel like a storybook. You can also find old buildings like the Riddarholmen Church, which dates back many hundreds of years, and the grand Storkyrkan cathedral that started in the 1200s but got a Baroque look later.

As Stockholm grew, different styles were added. In the late 1800s people built grand homes on Strandvägen. In the 1900s architects made new public buildings such as City Hall and the Public Library. The city even keeps old building records going back to 1713 so people can learn how places changed.

Stockholm is the capital city of Sweden and its busiest place for work, school, and art. About one million people live inside the city limits, and many more live nearby. The city spreads over fourteen islands where a big lake meets the sea, so water is part of everyday life.

People have lived in the area for a very long time, and the city grew around the 1200s. Today Stockholm is where the government meets, where famous prizes are celebrated, and where students study at large universities. It is a city of museums, music, parks, and busy streets where old and new buildings stand close together.

Bonniers Konsthall and places like Tensta Konsthall are centers where artists show new work and sometimes hosts performances. Around Hudiksvallsgatan you can find many galleries, and some famous ones, like Andréhn‑Schiptjenko, help artists share ideas with the public.

Other museums and halls, such as the Thiel Gallery and Liljevalchs konsthall, mix exhibitions with events. For example, Liljevalchs holds a spring salon where people submit art anonymously, so anyone can be surprised by what appears. Would you like to see a gallery that also plays music or puts on a short play?