Sweden in relief: what a 3D map of Sweden actually shows
The mountains in the west, the river valleys of Norrland, the great lakes in the middle and the flat plain of Skåne. What a 3D map of Sweden actually shows, from Kebnekaise to the country's lowest point.
On a flat map Sweden is a long country with blue patches. Make the map three-dimensional and something else appears: a country that tilts.
Sweden's total relief is just under 2,100 metres, from the north summit of Kebnekaise at 2,096.8 m down to a field outside Kristianstad that lies 2.32 m below sea level. That is not much for a country more than 1,500 km long. But the height is not spread evenly, and that uneven spread is what makes a 3D map of Sweden readable from across a room.
Here is what you actually see, from north to south.
The mountains: almost all the height is in the west
Nearly all of Sweden's real height sits in a narrow band along the Norwegian border. These are the Scandes, the remains of a mountain range folded up when two continental plates collided around 400 million years ago. How they were worn down, lifted again and shaped by ice is covered in why Swedish mountains look the way they do.
All twelve Swedish summits above 2,000 metres are in Lapland, in the Kebnekaise and Sarek areas and on Akka by Stora Sjöfallet. Further south the fells get lower and rounder, but the band runs all the way down to northern Dalarna. On the piece it is the only part of the country that throws really strong shadows.
Norrland tilts towards the sea
From the mountains the land slopes down towards the Gulf of Bothnia. It is a long, uneven incline of hills and bog, and the big rivers have cut valleys through it that run roughly parallel from northwest to southeast. The Torne, Lule, Ume, Ångerman and Indal rivers all follow the same line.
That direction is what gives northern Sweden its striped texture when the relief is lit from the side. On a flat map the river valleys are blue lines. In relief they are grooves.
The High Coast: a shoreline that is still rising
Where the Ångerman river meets the sea lies the High Coast. When the ice sheet melted around 10,500 years ago, the sea stood 286 metres higher up the hill of Skuleberget than it does today, according to the County Administrative Board of Västernorrland. It is the highest known post-glacial shoreline in the world, and the land is still rising by just under a centimetre a year. The area became a World Heritage Site in 2000.
It is also one of the few places on the Norrland coast where hills run straight down into the water. The rest of that coast is low and flat.
The middle: a lowland of great lakes
South of Norrland the incline is broken by a low belt across the country, from the west coast to Stockholm. This is where Vänern, Vättern, Hjälmaren and Mälaren lie. At 5,450 square kilometres Vänern is the third largest lake in Europe, according to SMHI. Vättern is narrow and 135 km long, and the shape is no accident: it sits in a fault trough in the earth's crust, which gives it straight shores and steep depths.
On the piece the lakes are smooth surfaces with no relief, and that is exactly why they stand out. They are the only perfectly flat fields in the middle of the country.
Småland, then the flat south
South of Vättern the land rises again into the South Swedish highlands. These are not mountains in any real sense - the highest point is just under 380 metres - but they form a broad dome that reads clearly against the plains around it.
At the very south the country flattens out. The Skåne plain is almost level, broken only by narrow ridges such as Söderåsen and Romeleåsen. Sweden's lowest point is here too, by lake Hammarsjön in Kristianstad, 2.32 m below sea level according to Kristianstad's Vattenrike biosphere reserve. Öland and Gotland are low limestone islands, but their outlines are so distinct that, together with the mountains, they are what makes a map of Sweden recognisable at a glance.
Why the height has to be exaggerated
On a piece 90 cm tall, every millimetre stands for roughly two kilometres of landscape. At that scale Kebnekaise would be about one millimetre high and the rest of the country effectively flat. So the height is scaled up, vertically only, until the mountains, the lowlands and the coasts can be read. The outline is never touched. Why, and where the limit lies, is in the piece on vertical exaggeration.
The piece
The Sweden 3D map measures 90 x 40 cm, with an oak frame and a matt black base that makes the outline stand out. Gotland and Öland are included. The relief is shaped with ALTIFORM, our own technology, and every piece is made to order in Sweden and arrives fully assembled. There is also Italy in the same spirit.
