Swedish people

:"Swede" redirects here. This article is about the Swedish people as an ethnic group. For information about residents or nationals of Sweden, see demographics of Sweden. For swede, the vegetable, see rutabaga.

Swedish speakers outside Sweden

The Finland-Swedes form an important minority group in Finland, about 265,000, comprising 5.10% of the population of mainland Finland, or 5.55%http://www.stat.fi/tk/tp/tasku/taskue_vaesto.html if the 26,000 inhabitants of Åland are included (there are also about 60,000 Finland-Swedes currently resident in Sweden).

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The presence of Swedish speaking permanent residents in what is now Estonia (Estonia-Swedes) was first documented in the 14th century, and possibly dates back to the Viking Age. There were an estimated 12,000 Swedes resident in Estonia in 1563. Estonia was under Swedish rule 1558–1710, after which the territory was ceded to Russia in the 1721 Treaty of Nystad. In 1781, 1,300 Estonia-Swedes of the island of Hiiumaa (Dagö) were forced to move to Ukraine by Catherine II of Russia, where they formed Gammalsvenskby (Old Swedish Village). According to the 1934 census there were 7,641 Estonia-Swedes (Swedish speaking, 0.7 % of the population in Estonia), making Swedes the third largest national minority in Estonia, after Russians and Germans. During World War II almost the entire community of Estonia-Swedes fled to Sweden. Today there are, at most, a few hundred Estonia-Swedes living in Estonia and a few hundred in Ukraine, with the estimates varying widely depending on who identifies, or can be identified, as a Swede.

Related Topics:
14th century - Viking Age - 1563 - 1558 - 1710 - 1721 - Treaty of Nystad - 1781 - Hiiumaa - Dagö - Ukraine - Catherine II of Russia - Gammalsvenskby - 1934 - National minority - World War II

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