Where to Stay in Malmö, Skåne County

Malmö is known for the bridge. The Öresund bridge, sweeping across the strait to Copenhagen, binds the city into a cross-border region and has reshaped its life and outlook. The skyline is marked by the Turning Torso, the twisting white tower that rises over the redeveloped Western Harbour.

History sits close by. The medieval castle of Malmöhus and the brick Sankt Petri kyrka anchor the old town, while a dense mix of cultures, a busy food scene, and the green parks of the centre give the port its modern, outward-looking feel.

Malmöhus is the city's oldest monument, a moated Renaissance castle that the Danish kings raised to guard the port and that now holds the city's museums. The two great squares, Stortorget and Lilla torg, open at the centre beneath the brick tower of Sankt Petri kyrka, a soaring Gothic church in the Baltic style. The Turning Torso crowns the harbour.

Older parish churches such as Sankt Pauli kyrka and Sankt Johannes kyrka, the cog museum Koggmuseet, and the new district at Hyllie spread the city's landmarks from the medieval core out to the modern edge.

Malmö grew up as a Danish port. It received its city privileges in 1353, and through the late Middle Ages it became one of the busiest towns in the Danish realm, its harbour fat with the herring trade and its market drawing merchants from across the Baltic and the Hanseatic world. The castle of Malmöhus and the great brick church rose in this prosperous age, when the town looked south to Copenhagen across the strait.

The crown changed in the seventeenth century. When Skåne passed to Sweden, Malmö became a Swedish border fortress facing its old capital, and for a time it slipped into the quiet of a provincial garrison town. Industry revived it.

Shipyards, factories, and a great commercial harbour turned the city into a working port through the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, until the yards too declined. The Öresund bridge and the rebuilt waterfront then opened a new chapter. That long arc, from Hanseatic harbour to industrial city to cross-border hub, still runs through a town shaped at every turn by the strait it stands on.

Malmö lies on the Öresund strait at the south-western tip of Sweden, in the south-western part of Skåne County. The setting is flat and coastal. Inland spreads the rich farm plain of Skåne, the most fertile in the country, running from a low shoreline of harbours, beaches, and reclaimed land along the strait.

The city faces Copenhagen across the water. A bridge runs south-west toward the Danish coast, while Lund rises on its ridge a short way inland to the north-east of the port.

Malmö has the mild maritime climate of the far south of Sweden. The Öresund water moderates the seasons, bringing some of the gentlest winters in the country, with little lasting snow, and mild summers cooled by sea breezes off the strait. Rain falls across the year.

Spring arrives early here. The flat, open coast leaves the city exposed to steady winds from the water, and the surrounding plain greens up weeks ahead of the forests of inland and northern Sweden.

Malmö is one of the best-connected cities in the north. The central station sits at the heart of a busy rail network, with frequent trains running over the Öresund bridge to Copenhagen and north through Sweden. By road the E6 and E20 meet here, and the bridge motorway carries traffic across the strait.

Trains run constantly. Copenhagen Airport lies just over the bridge, a short ride away, making it the main international gateway for travellers flying in.