Uppsala County, Sweden — Towns & Travel Guide

Uppsala County is known for learning and old faith. Its capital holds the oldest university in the Nordic countries and the great cathedral that crowns the city, while the burial mounds of Gamla Uppsala mark a seat of pagan kings from the dawn of Swedish history. The archbishop sits here.

Lakes and farmland spread around. People know it for students, spires, and the deep roots of the nation.

Uppsala County lies in eastern Sweden, a low and fertile region north of Stockholm reaching from the shores of Lake Mälaren up to the Baltic coast of Roslagen. Open farmland, the richest plain of the old Uppland province, spreads across the centre, broken by ridges, lakes, and forest, and falling away to a long, broken coast where bays, sounds, and islands scatter into the northern edge of the Stockholm archipelago. Mälaren bounds the south.

The Fyrisån runs through Uppsala. This small river crosses the cathedral city and runs south across the plain to reach the great lake of Mälaren, which forms the county's southern shore. The Baltic coast of Roslagen lies to the east, sheltered and island-strewn, with old harbour towns along its bays.

Eskers thread the land in long gravel ridges. Farm villages, manor estates, and medieval churches dot the open country between the lakes and the sea.

Uppsala County is the cradle of Swedish learning and faith. The university at Uppsala, the oldest in the north, has shaped the nation's scholarship for centuries, and the city remains the seat of the Swedish church, its cathedral the tallest in the Nordic lands. Carl Linnaeus worked and taught here.

Student life and old ritual mingle in the city. The county also carries the deepest roots of early Swedish history, above all at Gamla Uppsala, where great burial mounds and an old church mark a centre of pagan kings and worship. Rune stones, medieval churches, and manor estates dot the surrounding plain.

Walpurgis night fills Uppsala with students each spring. Botanic gardens, museums, and a long academic calendar carry the culture forward, while the country districts keep the rhythm of farming, fishing, and old church-village life across the seasons.

Uppsala County holds Sweden's oldest history. Gamla Uppsala, with its three great burial mounds, was a seat of kings and pagan worship deep in the Iron Age and Viking era, long before the realm took its modern shape. The church and the university came later.

A cathedral rose at the new town of Uppsala, the university was founded in 1477, and the city became the religious heart of the kingdom under its archbishop. The county itself was drawn in the early eighteenth century. Mounds, spires, and old halls carry that long story still.

Uppsala County has a temperate climate of the kind common in eastern Sweden. Winters are cold, with frost and a snow cover that comes and goes through the darker months, softened a little by the nearness of Lake Mälaren and the sheltered Baltic coast to the east. Summers are warm and bright.

The long, light days draw people out to the lakes, the coast, and the open plain through the green height of high summer across the county. Spring and autumn are changeable, with rain off the Baltic.

Uppsala County is very easy to reach. Fast trains run north from Stockholm to Uppsala in a short ride, and Stockholm Arlanda airport lies between the two, putting the cathedral city within easy reach of the main international gateway. The main road and rail line run straight through.

Local trains stop at the lake towns. Good roads cross the plain to Enköping and the Roslagen coast in the east.