urban area in Gotland Municipality
Visby
Short answer: Visby is in Gotland Municipality, Gotland County. It has 26,305 residents.
Living here
Visby is the main town of Region Gotland, a medieval Hanseatic town that has been on the UNESCO World Heritage List since 1995. Just over 26,000 people live in the built-up area itself, and as a county seat and diocesan town Visby is the only real town on the island.
Close to everything in town, far from the mainland
Most people in Visby live within walking distance but not close to a grocery store, while the school and the forest are a couple of minutes' walk away for many. A major road runs right next to most plots. There is no railway on the island, so anyone who wants to take the train must first get to the mainland, and that requires a ferry of about three hours from Nynäshamn. In the town there are a couple of hundred registered land contaminations and plenty of air raid shelters, and a military area is within walking distance but not close to the buildings.
The range in the town is unusually large for a place of this size: about seventy restaurants, about twenty cafés, several museums, theatres and cinemas, and about twenty hotels. Clothing shops are many, and a Systembolag, a hospital and several government offices are in place. Among the sights are the ruins of the churches Sankt Lars and Drotten, Galgberget and the filming location for Villa Villekulla. For those who want to be active there are swimming pools, gyms and about ten sports halls.
Student life, tourism and a safe reputation
Visby is a student town through Uppsala University's Campus Gotland. The housing market bears the mark of tourism, with rental contracts that often run by academic year while the flat is handed back over the summer. Association life is broad and unusually niche for a place of this size, with everything from Visby Golfklubb, Visby BoIS and IF Friskis & Svettis Visby to Visby Rugbyförening and a kendo club.
Median income is below the national figure, but the share of highly educated people is high and unemployment low. Safety is often described as good, and military aircraft exercising nearby do not usually worry very many.
Visby suits those who want a historic, compact town with sea and culture within cycling distance and can live with the summer being high season. Those who need fast, cheap commuting to the mainland or a large range of things to do even in February should think carefully.
Draft. Based on a place profile from Lantmäteriet, SCB, OpenStreetMap, Wikipedia and the municipality's register of associations. To be reviewed before publication.
Facts
What it is like to live here
median in the locality
Median across 4,667 properties in the locality. Index is percentile 0-100 against all properties in Sweden.
Age distribution
Population 2025 from Statistics Sweden for the 15 statistical areas (DeSO) covering Visby, 26,192 inhabitants in total. The locality itself has 26,305 inhabitants. A statistical area follows no locality boundary, so the figures describe the area around the locality, not the locality alone.
From here and away
Lakes nearby
Nearest localities
Associations and activities
Associations and activities carrying the locality's name, from the municipalities' own registers, the Swedish Sports Confederation and the Swedish Tax Agency. The list is not exhaustive: an association without the locality name in its name is not included.
Surroundings
Distances are measured from the locality's centre to the nearest point in the layer, capped at 50 km. Counts are exact within the locality boundary. A layer not listed has nothing within the cap.
The figures describe the municipality, not the locality. The municipality page has tax, housing mix, schools and commuting.