Please bear in mind that the lifestyle, customs, educational methods and standards of other countries can be very different from those you are used to at home and you may feel disadvantaged if you do not speak the language. The laws governing personal and business relationships, trade unions, road use, personal freedom, domestic travel, buying and selling, etc., may be quite different from what you are used to.

Please contact the Swedish Institute to obtain cultural information about Sweden. 

All municipalities in Sweden have public libraries with trained librarians. It costs nothing to borrow books. 

One thing which is typical of Sweden is for workplaces to have ‘flat organisations’, designed to have as few decision-making levels as possible. Another thing worth noting is the reform of the Swedish ‘du’ form (informal form) of personal address. In the vast majority of cases people address each other as ‘du’ (the familiar form of ‘you’) and using first names, and this also has an influence on management/staff relations. 

Popular sports include football (soccer), handball, ice hockey, tennis, skiing and golf. 

In Sweden every person has a right of access to the countryside known as ‘allemansrätten’ (the right of public access). This entitles you to cross other people’s land (if it is not cultivated) or water, to fish along the coast, to camp for one night out of sight of other buildings and to pick berries, mushrooms and non-protected wild flowers. However, you are not allowed to discard litter in the countryside, to hunt, to fish in lakes without permission, to disturb animals or birds, to touch bird eggs or young, to touch anything growing on cultivated land or to light fires where the fire could spread or on exposed rock. If you wish to camp for more than one night in the same place you must ask the landowner for permission.

Text last edited on: 11/2009