Lund and Skåne


The city of Lund is situated in the southern part of Sweden, in a province called Skåne. Lund is one of the oldest cities in Scandinavia, founded more than one thousand years ago by the Danes. In the late 10th century Lund was a permanent settlement whose activities were centred on a church and a royal unit. It was the seat of an Archbishopric and a religious, political, commercial, cultural and educational centre for all of Scandinavia. In the middle of the 16th century the Lutheran church was established when most of the other existing churches were torn down.

The 16th century was a period of trouble for Lund. After several wars between Sweden and Denmark, Skåne became Swedish in 1658. Based on an academy founded in Lund in 1425, Lund University was established in 1668 partly to make Skåne more Swedish. It is reasonable to say that Lund has the longest academic tradition in Sweden. During the subsequent war between 1676 and 1679, the Danes attempted to recapture its former province. The result was a massacre and a large part of Lund was burnt down.

Lund was a sleepy university town until the early 19th century when it industrialised rapidly. The industrialisation continued throughout the 1900s and many Swedish companies were founded in Lund. Industries in Lund share a common concentration of modern, high-tech ideas and products. Lund University together with Lund Institute of Technology is today the largest university in the Nordic countries, with about 35,000 students. The university is working in close collaboration with several companies carrying out significant research and development.


Today Lund has about 100,000 inhabitants. At the heart of Lund is the Cathedral, built in the Romanesque style in the 12th century. Just north of the Cathedral, in the Lundagård Park are the University Building, the Lundagård House and the Academic Society. Nearby also is the Museum of Cultural History (Kulturen). Lund is not only a thousand years of history, it also very much a city of youth and bustling student life, which explodes every four years with a student carnival.


From the roof of the Lund University Hospital in the north, you can just make out Copenhagen on the other side of The Sound. At close range, you see an arc of successful industrial enterprises: Tetra Laval, Gambro, Draco and Åkerlund & Rausing. This is also the location of IDEON, Scandinavia's largest research park, where more than one hundred high-tech enterprises have established offices since IDEON's beginning in 1983. The Swedish Institute of Space Physics - Lund division is also located here. They all collaborate with Lund University and have made Lund known all over the world.



Tourist Information


Lund City - Lund's official Web site.

Skåne - Information about the region from Skåne Tourist Board.

Lund University - Lund University website.