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25 vaguely interesting stats you probably didn't know about Sweden

Emma Löfgren
Emma Löfgren - [email protected]
25 vaguely interesting stats you probably didn't know about Sweden
A Swede who's probably called Lars. Photo: Johan Nilsson/TT

To mark Sweden reaching ten million people on January 20th, here's some population trivia.

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82 percent of the population were born in Sweden, 18 percent are foreign-born.

Sweden's biggest foreign-born community come from Finland, then Iraq and Syria.

The most common name among women is Anna, followed by Emma and Eva.

Around 103,000 women are called Anna.

And three men.

More than 300,000 women have Anna as one of their first and middle names.

And 22 men.

Lars is the most common name among men. Around 92,000 men answer to Lars, and around 232,000 have it as one of their first or middle names.

No women are called Lars.

The most common surname in Sweden is Andersson.

Up until 2013, the most common surname was Johansson.

The most common name among newborn girls in 2015 was Elsa, followed by Alice and Maja.

Among boys, it was William, Lucas and Liam (in that order).

28,939 people applied for asylum in Sweden in 2016, according to the Migration Agency, down from a record 162,877 in 2015.

How many people left Sweden in 2015? 55,830 moved abroad.

Most of those were foreign-born residents opting to return home.

Still, it's even more than during the height of Swedish mass emigration to the US in the 1800s, when the largest number to leave in a single year was 50,786 in 1887.

Then again, Sweden's total population in 1887 was 4.73 million.

The average monthly salary in Sweden is 32,000 kronor ($3,600).

That's 29,900 kronor for women and 34,100 kronor for men.

85.8 percent of eligible voters voted in the last parliamentary election in 2014.

Swedes eat on average 16 kilos of candy per person a year, according the Board of Agriculture.

That's up from 9-10 kilos in the 1970s and 1980s – a 60 percent rise.

The median age of Sweden's population was 40.95 in 2015.

In 1968 it was 35.77.

Source: Statistics Sweden unless otherwise stated.

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