Data Sources

Every map layer and its source

The map has around a hundred layers and key figures, and every one of them has a source. They are all listed here. Open a legend card on the map and you will find the same line there, together with that layer's sources of error — what the figure cannot answer.

Bedrock, soil and terrain

• Bedrock, age, tectonics and deformation zones — SGU's bedrock map at 1:50,000–1:250,000 (CC0). The colours are SGU's own legend colours, never invented by us.
• Soil type and radon risk — The Geological Survey of Sweden's (SGU) Quaternary deposits map. The radon risk is DERIVED from the soil type, not measured.
• Glacial landforms: eskers, drumlins, moraine ridges — SGU's mapped glacial landforms (eskers, drumlins, moraine ridges). The highest coastline, by contrast, is MODELLED by us from an elevation model.
• Glacial striations (direction of ice movement) — SGU's 65,406 striation observations (CC0), drawn as an arrow field coloured by direction.
• Seabed: substrate type and fibre banks — SGU's marine geological survey at 1:500,000 (CC0): substrate type and fibre banks.
• Places of geological interest — SGU's curated list of 133 places where Swedish geology can be seen on site (CC0).
• Uranium in bedrock and till — SGU's gamma radiation measurements on outcrops (55,747 points) and regional till geochemistry samples (28,467).
• Magnetic anomaly — SGU's aeromagnetic anomaly map (CC0), a 200 m grid, shown as a coloured raster.
• Gravity (Bouguer) — SGU's Bouguer anomaly (CC0), interpolated from ground measurements, 500 m cells in the RG82 reference field.
• Acid sulfate soils — SGU's model of acid sulfate soils (CC0) as a classified raster surface, plus 2,632 field samples.
• Soil depth and thermal conductivity (ground-source heat) — SGU: the soil depth model (10 m raster) and the overview map of the bedrock's thermal conductivity.
• Wells (energy and water) — SGU's well archive, 824,292 wells (CC0). Personal data (property designation and location description) is stripped in our build and never reaches the map.
• Mines, quarries, concessions and exploration permits — SGU and the Mining Inspectorate (mines, mineral resources, concessions and exploration permits) plus OpenStreetMap (quarries).
• Slope, hillshade and steep slopes — Derived by us from Copernicus GLO-90, a global elevation model with 90 metre resolution.
• Land uplift — The NKG2016LU land uplift model (Nordic Geodetic Commission) via Lantmäteriet, CC BY 4.0.
• The sea's retreat after the ice age — SGU's shore displacement model (CC0). The levels in between are interpolated by us from the highest coastline and an elevation model.
• 3D terrain (the elevation model beneath the map) — Lantmäteriet's ground elevation model for Sweden. Neighbouring countries and the zoomed-out levels are filled from Copernicus GLO-90, which is a surface model — tree canopies and roofs are part of its height.

Nature, environment and outdoor life

• Protected nature: reserves, Natura 2000, Ramsar, water protection — The Environmental Protection Agency and the County Administrative Boards: nature reserves, national parks, Natura 2000, Ramsar, water protection areas, habitat protection and outdoor recreation areas.
• Forest conservation values: key habitats and swamp forests — The Swedish Forest Agency: woodland key habitats, the forestry companies' own key habitats, objects with natural values and swamp forests (CC0).
• Felling notifications — The Swedish Forest Agency's felling notifications, 133,156 areas over the past five years.
• Tree height (forest base data) — Swedish Forest Agency forest base data — lidar-derived tree height, cycle 2 (2018–2025), aggregated from 1 m to 50 m cells. CC0.
• Soil moisture — SLU soil moisture map via the Swedish Forest Agency — modelled with machine learning from lidar data, three classes per 50 m cell. CC0.
• Mushroom index (modelled) — Model (scripts/build_svamp_pmtiles.py + build_svampvader.py): habitat from NMD 2023 tree-species share (pine, spruce, trivial broadleaf, beech, oak, other noble broadleaf, lodgepole, larch; base-layer forest classes where the layer has no data), Forest Agency tree height and SLU soil moisture, SGU soil types and bedrock (calcareous and basic rock lifts black trumpet, porcini, morels), Copernicus GLO-90 slope, executed fellings and burnt areas; weather window per municipality: rain from SMHI's MESAN analysis (2.5 km grid, 24 h sums, mean over the municipality's cells) and temperature from the same analysis (five analyses per day → daily mean and night minimum per cell, 7 days; nearest SMHI station as fallback), 30 days. All CC0/CC BY.
• Climate 1961– (SMHI PTHBV) — SMHI PTHBV (CC BY 4.0): precipitation and temperature interpolated to a 4 km grid from the station network, daily values since 1961. The map shows the 1991–2020 normal period and the difference from 1961–1990; the KPIs are the municipality mean over its cells. The Mean wind 100 m checkbox in the same card instead shows Global Wind Atlas 3 (DTU/World Bank, CC BY 4.0): modelled mean annual wind at 100 m height, 250 m grid, climatology 2008–2017.
• Weather warnings (SMHI) — SMHI impact-based weather warnings (CC BY 4.0), fetched straight from SMHI's API in your browser when the layer is switched on (at most 10 minutes old).
• Air quality (PM2.5 and NO₂) — The European Environment Agency's interpolated maps of PM2.5 and NO2, annual mean in µg/m³, 1 km grid.
• Noise from road, rail and air — and natural quiet — The Swedish Transport Administration's noise mapping under the EU Environmental Noise Directive (road, rail, air), plus the Environmental Protection Agency's map of natural quiet.
• Bathing sites and bathing water quality — The Agency for Marine and Water Management's Badplatsen: roughly 2,630 EU bathing waters with quality class, sample results and advisories.
• Birding sites and species distribution — The bird sites are a curated list of 41 places. The species distribution is fetched LIVE from the GBIF observation database.
• Hiking, cycling and ski trails — Hiking, cycling and ski trails from OpenStreetMap.
• Sports facilities and floodlit tracks — Sports facilities from OpenStreetMap (swimming pool, sports hall, ice rink, gym, playing field) plus floodlit exercise tracks.
• Golf courses, motor circuits, trotting and galloping tracks — Golf courses and motor racing circuits from OpenStreetMap; the trotting and galloping tracks are a curated list of 33.
• Natural hazards: landslides, rockfall, erosion, flooding, wildfire — SGU (landslides and rockfall, coastal erosion), MSB (flooding at Vänern and Mälaren and along watercourses) and the Swedish Forest Agency (burnt areas).
• Lakes — Lantmäteriet's hydrography data (StandingWater) — lakes larger than 10 hectares.
• Sea depth (bathymetry) — EMODnet Bathymetry, a roughly 116 m grid, for the sea. Lake beds are MODELLED from SMHI's SVAR register: no open depth model exists for Swedish lakes.
• Future sea level — SMHI's future mean sea level (IPCC AR6). Land uplift is already included; storm surge and waves are not.

Land, buildings and land-use regulation

• Land cover: forest, agriculture, industry — Lantmäteriet's land cover data (forest, agricultural land, industrial and retail land).
• Buildings (coloured by type) — Lantmäteriet's building register, roughly 9.5 million buildings, coloured by building type.
• Individual trees in 3D (canopy height model) — The Swedish Forest Agency's canopy height model at 1 metre resolution (laser-scanned surface model minus terrain model). Every local maximum becomes a tree; height and crown radius are measured from the same raster. The ground level beneath each tree is sampled from the terrain model the map itself draws, the building mask comes from Lantmäteriet's building register, and the water and municipal boundary masks from Lantmäteriet's land cover data. 73.1 million trees across 285 municipalities (built 2026-08-28).
• Industrial and retail land — Lantmäteriet's land use data: 7,043 areas of industrial and retail development, coloured by size.
• Legally binding detailed development plans — Legally binding detailed development plans from the National Geodata Platform, roughly 17,800 plan areas.
• Shoreline protection, national interests and other regulation — The Environmental Protection Agency, the County Administrative Boards and the National Heritage Board: shoreline protection, national interests, landscape protection, wildlife protection areas and natural monuments.
• Contaminated land (EBH) — The County Administrative Boards' EBH database, 85,429 potentially contaminated sites.
• Reindeer husbandry area and national interest — The Sami Parliament (the extent of the reindeer husbandry area, CC-BY) and the County Administrative Boards (national interest for reindeer husbandry).
• Cemeteries, allotment gardens and military areas — Cemeteries, allotment gardens and military areas from OpenStreetMap.

Infrastructure and transport

• Public transport: lines and stops — GTFS Sweden (Trafiklab/Samtrafiken) — the transport authorities' own timetables.
• Public transport interchanges — Derived by us from the GTFS timetables: stops clustered together where at least two lines meet.
• Freight railway (line type) — The Swedish Transport Administration's classification of the state railway network into line types, 21,928 segments.
• Heavy vehicle traffic (AADT) — NVDB/the Swedish Transport Administration via Lastkajen: annual average daily heavy vehicle traffic on 66,711 road segments.
• Ports (freight volume) — EMODnet/Eurostat: freight volume per port and goods category, 67 Swedish ports. The circle's AREA is proportional to the volume.
• Infrastructure plans — The Swedish Transport Administration's project map, 431 planned and ongoing projects, a little over a tenth enriched with cost and planning stage from the national plan 2026–2037.
• Power lines — The power lines come from OpenStreetMap, coloured by voltage level.
• Electrical substations — Electrical substations and switchyards from OpenStreetMap, coloured by grid level.
• Grid capacity — Svenska kraftnät's reporting of available capacity per county.
• Charging points — NOBIL's open data dump of public charging points in Sweden, coloured by maximum power.
• Wind turbines — Vindbrukskollen (the County Administrative Boards), roughly 10,700 turbines with status.
• Mobile masts and coverage — The masts come from OpenStreetMap; the coverage is a MODEL we calculated, not measured signal.
• Service proximity (coverage areas) — Road isochrones calculated by us (Valhalla) from the places found in OpenStreetMap: grocery shop, pharmacy, health centre, hospital, library, swimming pool, railway station, charging point, school and preschool.
• Fire stations and response time — The fire stations come from OpenStreetMap; the coverage areas are road isochrones we have calculated ourselves (roughly 5, 10 and 15 minutes' driving time).
• Cycle network — OpenStreetMap (ODbL) — roughly 154,000 dedicated cycle ways.
• Railways (the tracks on the map) — OpenStreetMap (ODbL) — every track type: railway, metro, tram, narrow gauge and heritage lines. The traffic on the tracks comes from the timetables instead.
• Domestic air routes — A curated register of scheduled domestic routes: the airlines' own timetables and the Swedish Transport Administration's public service obligation contracts.
• Electricity price areas SE1–SE4 — The price area boundaries come from ElectricityMaps; the price level is Statistics Sweden's electricity retail prices per area (CC0).

Society, services and safety

• Places and brands (POI) — OpenStreetMap via Overpass (ODbL), refreshed quarterly.
• Schools and school quality — The National Agency for Education (compulsory and upper secondary schools, including results, eligibility and teacher qualifications) plus OpenStreetMap (preschools).
• Healthcare — Health centres, hospitals, emergency departments, pharmacies, dentists and care homes from OpenStreetMap.
• Justice system: prisons, remand centres, police, courts — Prisons, remand centres, police stations, courts and state institutional care homes from OpenStreetMap, with a curated classification of security class and type.
• Civil defence shelters — MSB's civil defence shelter register, roughly 63,000 shelters with their number of places.
• Vulnerable areas — The police's 2025 assessment of vulnerable areas, matched against Statistics Sweden's RegSO areas.
• Reported offences — The National Council for Crime Prevention (Brå) via Kolada: reported offences per 100,000 residents and municipality, 2008–2025.
• Museums and sights — A curated base from OpenStreetMap (6,433 museums and sights) plus moderated contributions from visitors to the site.
• Associations and their premises — Compiled from OpenStreetMap (98 %) plus 207 hand-curated elite clubs.
• Events — Three sources. Turistrådet Västsverige: 1,832 events across 61 areas in western Sweden, with dates and positions. Ticketmaster: 305 concerts, sports and theatre with ticket links. Wikidata (CC0): 209 recurring events.

Population, housing, economy and politics

• Population density — Statistics Sweden's open population grid, residents per 1 km cell (CC0), as a heat map.
• How areas have developed over time — Statistics Sweden and Delmos socioeconomic index plus the official area type per RegSO/DeSO, 2011–2024 (CC0). We do not calculate vulnerability ourselves.
• Stability 2011–2024 — Calculated by us as the standard deviation of the area's percentile position 2011–2024, from Statistics Sweden's index.
• Population projection 2024–2070 — Statistics Sweden's official regional population projection 2024–2070 (CC0). The site's only layer about the future — we extrapolate nothing ourselves.
• Housing prices: houses and flats — Statistics Sweden (detached and holiday houses 1995–2025) and Kolada/Statistics Sweden's tax records (flats 2000–2025), CC0.
• Rents in rental flats — Statistics Sweden's survey Rents for dwellings (BO0406), SEK per m² and year 2016–2025, 289 of 290 municipalities (CC0).
• Vacant municipal plots — Municipalities' own open data, published under the Swedish national specification for vacant plots (Internetstiftelsen's Dataverkstad). 506 vacant plots across 13 municipalities, all CC0, retrieved via Sweden's data portal.
• Areas under development — Hand-curated list of 89 larger urban development areas (scripts/build_utvecklingsomraden.py): name, approximate extent, number of homes, timeline and planned public transport from the municipalities' and Trafikverket's own project pages, with a link to the municipality's page.
• Municipal finances — Kolada (Statistics Sweden's municipal accounts + RKA): nine financial measures per municipality 2008–2025, plus two composites we calculate in the browser.
• Business and business climate — Statistics Sweden (wage sums, business formation) and SKR's Insikt survey of the local business climate.
• Municipal elections 1973–2022 — Statistics Sweden (ME0104T1): the municipal elections 1973–2022, 15 election years.
• General elections 2010–2022 by area — The Election Authority via Statistics Sweden: the general elections of 2010, 2014, 2018 and 2022 per RegSO.
• Political governance 1994–2025 — Kolada (N05829, SKR): the governing bloc type per municipality and year 1994–2025.

Calculated by us, and scale references

• Chance of seeing the aurora — Calculated by us: geomagnetic latitude combined with cloud cover and hours of darkness from the climate normals.
• Time zones: solar time, nautical bands, IANA — The solar time strips and the nautical 15° bands are pure geometry calculated by us; the official zones come from the IANA time zone database.
• Mount Everest (scale reference) — A SCALE REFERENCE, not a map layer: the contours of Mount Everest placed on Swedish ground.
• Sweden's footprint (cubes) — A SCALE REFERENCE: Sweden's territorial greenhouse gas emissions for one year, drawn as cubes with the volume converted into a physical shape.
• Sun path, daylight and day/night — Calculated in the browser from NOAA's solar position algorithm — no data is fetched.

The key figures behind the map colouring

• Municipal key figures — Kolada (RKA) — the municipalities' own reporting, passed on from Statistics Sweden, the National Agency for Education, the National Board of Health and Welfare and others.
• Area statistics (RegSO, DeSO, urban area) — Statistics Sweden's statistical atlas (open data, CC0). A full-count register — population, income and education registers.
• Number of places per municipality — OpenStreetMap via Overpass, refreshed quarterly (ODbL).
• Climate and weather — SMHI — station observations 1991–2020 (temperature, precipitation, snow, wind, cloud) and the STRÅNG model for solar radiation.
• Elections and governance — The Swedish Election Authority (results) and SKR plus the municipalities' own information (governance).
• Job vacancies — Platsbanken/JobTech (the Swedish Public Employment Service), a snapshot updated daily.
• Clubs and associations — Compiled by MapAndMove from the Swedish Sports Confederation, the special federations and the municipalities' own registers.
• Properties — Property data from Lantmäteriet, processed in our own PostGIS pipeline (4.3 million polygons).
• Mortgage calculation — Calculated by MapAndMove from the municipality's house prices and median income, with interest, amortisation requirements and interest deductions at national level.
• Electricity price — Statistics Sweden's electricity retail prices per price area plus energy tax. A static file, not a live price.
• Water, waste and district heating — The Nils Holgersson survey 2025 — water and sewage, waste and district heating charges per municipality, in SEK per square metre per year including VAT. Running costs is the sum of those three plus electricity.
• Broadband — PTS broadband survey (share with fibre per municipality, urban area and countryside).
• Population ahead — Statistics Sweden's regional population projection.
• Housing need — The National Board of Housing's calculation of housing need, set against actual planning.
• Climate 1961– (SMHI PTHBV) — SMHI PTHBV (CC BY 4.0): temperature and precipitation interpolated to a 4 km grid, annual values since 1961. A municipality's value is the mean over its cells.
• Fire risk (SMHI) — SMHI fire-risk forecast (CC BY 4.0): six-step class (1 very low … 6 extreme) per day on a 2.8 km grid, read at each municipality's centre point every morning.
• Thunder and lightning strikes (SMHI) — SMHI's lightning location network (CC BY 4.0): every registered cloud-to-ground strike 2012–2025 with position, binned into 1 km cells and summed per municipality. Mean over fourteen full years.
• Lake ice and spring flood (SMHI) — SMHI hydrological observations (CC BY 4.0): freeze-up and break-up of lake ice plus daily river discharge, read from the station closest to the municipality's centre point (at most 60 km). Median over the station's last 30 seasons.
• Pollen forecast (Swedish Museum of Natural History) — Pollenrapporten, the Palynological Laboratory at the Swedish Museum of Natural History (CC BY-ND 4.0): today's forecast level (0 no pollen … 7 very high) per pollen type for whichever of 23 regions has its trap closest to the municipality's centre point. Fetched once each morning and shown unchanged.
• Snow days (SMHI metobs) — SMHI station measurements of snow depth at 06:00 (CC BY 4.0), read from the station closest to the municipality's centre point (at most 60 km). Median over the winters 1991/92–2020/21: days with at least 1 cm of snow, and the winter's greatest snow depth.
• UV dose (SMHI STRÅNG) — SMHI STRÅNG (CC BY 4.0), parameter 116: CIE-weighted UV irradiance on a 2.5 km grid, read at the municipality's centre point 2020–2024. Daily doses summed to an annual dose in kJ/m²; 1 SED = 0.1 kJ/m².
• Mean wind 100 m (Global Wind Atlas) — Global Wind Atlas 3 (DTU and the World Bank, CC BY 4.0): modelled mean annual wind speed 100 m above ground on a 250 m grid, climatology 2008–2017. The municipality's value is the mean over its cells; the share is cells with at least 7 m/s.
• Air quality at monitoring stations (Swedish EPA/EEA) — The Swedish EPA's air-quality data host, fetched through the EEA Air Quality Download Service (validated hourly values). Only stations located IN the municipality; the value is the station with the highest annual mean, for the latest year with at least 75 % data capture (usually 2024). Days above the WHO 2021 guidelines (PM2.5 15, NO₂ 25, PM10 45 µg/m³ as daily means).
• Climate adaptation in comprehensive plans (Boverket) — Boverket, report 2025:17 on climate adaptation in comprehensive plans 2018–2024 (CC BY). The plan year covers all municipalities; risk types and measures are counted from the 84 plans Boverket reviewed (adopted 2018 or later).
• Greenhouse gas emissions per municipality (National emissions database) — The national emissions database (Swedish EPA and RUS, data from SMED, hosted by SMHI): territorial greenhouse-gas emissions per municipality and sector, tonnes CO₂ equivalent, 1990 and 2020–.
• Emissions pathway — Emissions per municipality with a projected path to 2050.
• Occupational outlook — The Public Employment Service's occupational barometer — an ASSESSMENT, not a measurement.
• Travel time to services — Calculated travel time to the nearest service, population-weighted per municipality (public transport timetables + OpenStreetMap places).
• Business location potential — MapAndMove's own model: population within a grid cell weighted against the businesses already there.
• Socioeconomic index — Statistics Sweden's socioeconomic index per RegSO (CC0).
• School types in the municipality — The national school register (data/skolor.geojson) for upper secondary schools, and an editorial list of higher-education institutions (data/education_data.json). Counted per municipality by scripts/build_skolformer.py. Compulsory schools, preschools, pupils per teacher (median over the municipality's compulsory schools) and the share of independent schools come from the same school register (build_skolformer.py per_kommun). Pupils per school is the register's approximate figure (median over the municipality's compulsory schools); university and folk high school are yes/no from the editorial list in data/education_data.json.
• Proximity to nature — Lakes larger than 0.1 km² from the map's lake layer (proximity measured to the shoreline from each locality's centre point, population-weighted — scripts/build_natur_narhet.py), nature reserves, national parks and lakes per municipality from the Environmental Protection Agency/Lantmäteriet (natur_per_kommun.json), and trails from OSM's hiking, ski and cycle networks assigned per segment to the municipal polygon (scripts/build_natur_kommun.py).
• Travel time to a major city — The commute matrix (RAPTOR over GTFS, the same one the Distance condition uses): public-transport travel time from the municipality's best-placed locality to Stockholm, Gothenburg or Malmö, whichever is shortest.
• Leisure facilities per municipality — Bathing sites from the Swedish Agency for Marine and Water Management's register (EU bathing waters = those with statutory sampling), lit tracks, allotment gardens, trotting/racecourses and motor tracks from OSM — all assigned to the municipal polygon by point-in-polygon (scripts/build_fritid_kommun.py).
• Rent level per municipality — Statistics Sweden's rent survey (BO0406), median rent per m² and year for rental flats, latest year — the same file as the rent layer (scripts/build_hyror.py).
• Reported crime per municipality — Reported crimes per 100,000 residents from the Swedish National Council for Crime Prevention via Kolada (data/brott_kommun.json), latest year.
• Municipal finances — The municipality's own finances from Statistics Sweden's accounts and RKA via Kolada (data/kommunekonomi_kommun.json), latest year — surplus as a share of tax and grants, solvency, self-financed investments, net from the equalisation system.
• Business indicators per municipality — Business indicators from Statistics Sweden and SKR via Kolada (data/naringsliv_kommun.json): new businesses per 1,000 residents aged 16–64, share of self-employed, industry diversity, day/night wage ratio, and the Insikt index (businesses' rating of municipal administration).
• Vulnerable areas and shelters — The police's list of vulnerable and especially vulnerable areas (data/utsatta_omraden.geojson, by municipal code) and the civil contingencies agency's shelter register (data/skyddsrum.geojson) placed on the municipal polygon, places as a share of population.

Geography and area divisions

• Municipal boundaries — The municipal boundaries come from Statistics Sweden's official division, clipped at the coastline and reprojected from SWEREF99TM to WGS84.
• RegSO — regional statistical areas — The areas are Statistics Sweden's RegSO — a fixed division into regional statistical areas, designed to stay comparable over time.
• County, province and land region boundaries — The counties come from Lantmäteriet's “Municipality, county and realm” dataset. The province boundaries are a free dissolve (CC0) of the same data, and land regions, NUTS 2 regions and healthcare regions are dissolves of the counties.
• SWEREF zones and reference stations (SWEPOS) — The zones are derived from Lantmäteriet's central meridians for SWEREF 99; the stations come from the public SWEPOS map service (Lantmäteriet).

Search, journeys and photos

• Address search — Lantmäteriet's address register, 3.8 million addresses (Geotorget).
• The journey planner — Travel times are calculated on our own MOTIS server from GTFS Sweden (Trafiklab/Samtrafiken) and the OpenStreetMap road network. No real-time data is used.
• Photos in municipality and place cards — Wikimedia Commons. Only free licences are accepted, and the author, licence and link are shown with the image — an empty or unknown licence means no.

About our data