With beautiful lakes and forests, Sweden is a charming Scandinavia's country and a major travel destination attracted worldwide visitors every year.

The Kingdom of Sweden is located in Northern Europe between Finland and Norway, bordering the Baltic Sea, Gulf of Bothnia, Kattegat, and Skagerrak. With total land area about 410,934 square kilometers, Sweden is slightly larger than California of the United States.

Sweden has 8,986,400 (2004 estimate) population, including indigenous population: Swedes and Finnish and Lapp (Sami) minorities; foreign-born or first-generation immigrants: Finns, Yugoslavs, Danes, Norwegians, Greeks, and Turks. With small Sami- and Finnish-speaking minorities, Swedish is the official language in Sweden.

As an independent and neutral nation for the whole twentieth century, Sweden has achieved an enviable standard of living under a mixed system of high-tech capitalism and extensive welfare benefits. It has a modern distribution system, excellent internal and external communications facilities, and a skilled labor force.

Sweden currency is Sweden kronor (SEK). Based on January 2003 exchange rates, 1 US dollar equal to 8.0853 Sweden kronor.

Sweden has excellent domestic and international automatic telephone system. With Internet country code .se, Sweden has about 5 million Internet users (2002 estimate).

Stockholm, the capital of the Kingdom of Sweden, is a favorite travel destination and beautiful city with magnificent waterside City Hall, where the Nobel Prize banquets are held. There are many luxury hotels in Stockholm, such as Diplomat Hotel Stockholm, to provide excellent services to visitors. The Royal Palace, Riddarholm Church, Storkyrkan, the Skansen Folklore Museum, the narrow cobbled streets of Gamla Stan (the old town) are some of Stockholm's tourist attractions.

Sigtuna, located in the northwest of Stockholm, is an old Viking capital. Uppsala is another Sweden's attractive city with a historic university and magnificent githic cathedral. Nusnas, located in the heart land of Sweden, is the home of the world famous Dalarna horses.

Gothenburg is a busy port in the westcoast. From here you can take ferry to across the Kattegat to go to Denmark.