Where to Stay in Umeå, Västerbotten County

What is Umeå known for?

It is best known as a university town, drawing students from across the country and giving the place a young and lively character, and as the city of birches, named for the rows of trees planted along its streets after a great fire. Culture runs deep here. The riverside art museum Bildmuseet, the open-air Gammlia, the Guitars museum, and a held year as a European Capital of Culture mark it out, while the Umeälven runs through the heart of the city.

What are the main landmarks in Umeå?

The riverside arts quarter is the city's showpiece, where Bildmuseet rises over the Umeälven beside the school of architecture and design. Gammlia gathers the past of the north. This open-air museum and its halls hold old farms and the regional collections, while the Guitars museum and the Kvinnohistoriskt museum add their own draws nearby.

Among the streets stand the grand Mariakyrkan and the brick Carlskyrkan, the wooden Tegs kyrka and Vasakyrkan across the water, the old Scharinska villan, and the merchant houses spared by the great fire, with the Umeå Energi Arena and the broad birch-lined avenues filling out the city. The river ties it all together.

What is the history of Umeå?

The city was chartered in the seventeenth century. Founded in 1622 by royal decree on the lower Umeälven, the town was meant to anchor the crown's hold on the far north, and for two centuries it grew slowly as a small trading and administrative place on the river, gathering merchants, officials, and a market for the wide farming and forest country around it. War and fire marked its early life.

A great fire reshaped the modern city. When much of the wooden town burned in the nineteenth century, it was rebuilt on a wider plan with broad streets, and birches were planted in long rows as firebreaks, giving Umeå the leafy character and the name of the city of birches that it carries still. The university transformed everything.

When a northern university was founded in the city in the twentieth century, students and scholars poured in, and Umeå grew swiftly into the largest city of the north, a centre of learning, culture, and care that drew a young population and a wide cultural life to the banks of the Umeälven.

Where is Umeå?

Umeå lies in the south-eastern part of Västerbotten County, near the Baltic coast where the Umeälven reaches the sea in northern Sweden. The city straddles the lower river, with the open coast and its islands a short way to the east and the forests, lakes, and farmland of the interior spreading inland to the west. The setting is river and coast.

Roads and rail tie the city north toward Skellefteå, south toward the Ångermanland coast, and west up the river valley into the interior of Lapland.

What is the climate of Umeå?

Umeå has a cold climate softened a little by the nearby Baltic. Winters are long and snowy, with hard frost and lasting snow lying over the city and the country around it for months while the sun stays low and the days run short through the darkest part of the year. The summer season runs short but bright.

The long days bring mild warmth, green birch and forest, and open water, drawing people to the river and the coast before the cold returns. Snow cover here holds reliably each winter.

How do you get to Umeå?

Umeå has a busy airport. It lies close to the city and links the north to Stockholm and other centres, serving as the main gateway for visitors from the south. Trains and buses reach the city along the Baltic route, and a ferry crosses the Gulf of Bothnia to Vaasa in Finland.

Drivers come on the coastal road from Skellefteå in the north and the Ångermanland towns in the south, while a long route runs west up the river valley into the interior.