History of Gothenburg

The history of Gothenburg (Swedish: Göteborg) begins with the foundation of the city in 1621, although by that time people had already been living in the area for thousands of years, since the Neolithic Period, and moreover there had already been a series of earlier settlements on the lower Göta Älv, including one which also bore the name Gothenburg.

The Göta Älv has been of crucial importance throughout Swedish history as the country's only direct outlet to the North Sea, and thus to the wider world beyond the Baltic Sea. However, for many centuries the borders with Norwegian Bohuslän and Danish Halland ran right up to the river mouth, making Swedish settlements in the area extremely vulnerable to attack. The threat was significantly reduced by the conquests of both Bohuslän and Halland in the mid-seventeenth century, which gave Gothenburg the security to expand into Sweden's largest port and one of its main industrial centres.