Småland: The Kingdom of Glass, Lakes and Deep Forests

The Secret Interior

There are parts of Sweden that international visitors reliably discover – Stockholm, Lapland, the western islands – and there are parts that remain largely in the hands of the Swedes themselves. Småland belongs to the second category. And that is entirely, deliberately the point of going there.

The Land

Covering roughly the same area as Denmark, Småland is the great Swedish interior: a tableland of ancient granite, dense spruce and pine forest, over five thousand lakes and a handful of small cities that punch well above their cultural weight. It is where the glass was made, where IKEA was born, where Astrid Lindgren set her stories, and where several million Swedes summer in wooden cottages by lakesides that have looked more or less the same for a century.

The Glass Kingdom

In a stretch of forest between the cities of Kalmar and Växjö, something unexpected happens. Hidden among the trees, accessible by small roads that feel like they lead nowhere, are the glassworks – hyttor – of the Glasriket, the Kingdom of Glass. Some twenty glass studios survive here, producing handblown and mouth-blown glass of extraordinary quality and artistry. The tradition dates to 1742, when the first glasswork was established in the forest, and the techniques and knowledge have been passed down through families for generations.

The experience of visiting a working glasswork is visceral in a way that few craft traditions can match. The furnaces run at 1100°C. The masters work in practiced silence, rotating the blowpipe, gathering molten glass that glows orange and amber, shaping it with tools and breath into forms of startling delicacy. You can watch from metres away, feeling the heat on your face, as a shapeless blob of molten silica becomes – in minutes – a wine glass, a vase, a sculptural object.

The Lakes

Småland has 5,000 lakes. This number is difficult to visualise until you are driving through the region and realise that you have seen a lake glinting through the trees every two or three minutes for the past hour. They range from small forest pools to Vättern – the second largest lake in Sweden and the sixth largest in Europe, a body of water so large it has its own microclimate and weather system.

Swimming in a Småland lake on a warm July afternoon, surrounded by pine forest with no buildings in sight, is one of the quintessential Swedish experiences. The water is soft, slightly dark from the forest acids, and in smaller lakes surprisingly warm by July. Allemansrätten – the right to roam – means you can swim in any lake you reach. Many of Sweden's most famous wilderness canoe routes run through Småland's lake systems.

Astrid Lindgren's World

Astrid Lindgren – author of Pippi Longstocking, Emil of Lönneberga, Ronja Rövardotter and dozens of other books beloved by generations of Swedish children – was born in Vimmerby in Småland in 1907 and never lost her connection to the region. The landscape of her childhood is the landscape of her books: the red wooden farmhouses, the deep forests, the dark lakes, the summer meadows.

Astrid Lindgrens Värld in Vimmerby is a theme park built around her stories and, unusually, manages to be genuinely touching rather than merely commercial. The environments recreate the settings of her books at human scale, and the performances throughout the day bring the characters to life. It works for adults as much as for children because the stories, handled with this care, connect to something real about Swedish identity and the particular quality of Swedish summers.

The house where Lindgren was born, in the village of Näs outside Vimmerby, is now a museum and beautifully maintained. Visiting it, you understand immediately where all those summer descriptions came from.

Växjö: The Eco-City

Växjö, Småland's main city, is worth more than a night. It was the first city in the world to explicitly commit to becoming fossil-fuel free – back in 1996, when such commitments were genuinely radical – and has since built a reputation for thoughtful urban planning, good food and culture that belies its modest size.

The Smålands Museum in Växjö has an excellent glass collection – the best context for a Glass Kingdom visit – and the Emigrants' House tells the story of the mass emigration from Småland to America in the 19th century, a story that connects the region to millions of Americans of Swedish descent. The emigration from Småland was so significant that the lake town of Lindköping gave its name to a neighbourhood of Minneapolis; Astrid Lindgren's grandfather was among those who left.

The Red Cottages

The dominant colour of Småland – and much of rural Sweden – is red. The Falun red paint that covers farmhouses, barns and summer cottages across the Swedish countryside was originally a byproduct of the copper mines at Falun in Dalarna and has been in use since the 17th century. In Småland, against the backdrop of dark pine forest and pale lake water, the red cottages take on a quality of pure pictorial Sweden that is hard to resist and impossible to forget.

Many of these cottages are available for rent as holiday accommodation at very reasonable prices. A week in a red cottage by a Småland lake, with a rowing boat at the dock and a fireplace for cool evenings, is one of the most restorative holidays Sweden offers. It is also one of the least expensive.

The Birthplace of IKEA

In the village of Älmhult in Småland, in 1943, a seventeen-year-old named Ingvar Kamprad founded a small mail-order company called IKEA. The company's origins in this deeply rural, resource-poor corner of Sweden shaped its foundational philosophy: make things that work, keep them simple, and never waste anything. The IKEA Museum in Älmhult tells this story with more wit and depth than you might expect, and a visit gives context to an empire that now furnishes a significant proportion of the world's homes.

Best Times to Visit Småland

Småland rewards every season differently. Summer is the classic time – the lakes warm up, the cottages fill, and the days are long enough that you lose track of time. Autumn brings the most dramatic colours: the forest turns gold and copper in September, the mushrooms arrive, and the light through the trees has a quality that photographers obsess over. Winter, with snow settling on the frozen lakes and the spruce trees heavy with white, is austere and beautiful in equal measure. Spring arrives slowly and tentatively, the ice leaving the lakes in April, everything suddenly green and impossibly bright.

The Glass Kingdom: Kosta Boda and the Glassworks

Småland's reputation rests partly on its glass. The region between Växjö and Nybro — the Kingdom of Crystal (Glasriket) — contains seventeen working glassworks, many of them in continuous operation since the eighteenth century. The concentration of skill, the quality of the sand and the historical tradition of the craft make this one of the most significant glass-producing regions in the world.

Kosta Boda is the most famous name — the Kosta glassworks was founded in 1742 and is the oldest continuously operating glassworks in Sweden. Visitors can watch glassblowing demonstrations, access the factory outlet (substantially cheaper than retail) and walk through the design museum. The glass produced here ranges from utilitarian tableware to serious art pieces commanding significant prices internationally.

The smaller glassworks are in some ways more interesting to visit. Places like Pukeberg, Målerås and Bergdala operate at a human scale — you can watch a single glassblower work from start to finish, ask questions freely and buy directly. Some offer half-day courses in basic glassblowing. The Glasriket tourist route connects them all by road through a landscape of birch forest and small lakes that is quintessential southern Sweden.

Astrid Lindgren's Småland

Astrid Lindgren — creator of Pippi Longstocking, Emil of Lönneberga, and a dozen other works that defined Swedish childhood across several generations — was born in Vimmerby in 1907 and grew up in the Småland landscape. Her books draw directly on it: the red farmhouses, the dark forests, the small-town life, the specific quality of Småland summer light.

Junibacken in Stockholm is the more famous Lindgren attraction, but Vimmerby is where the landscape actually is. Astrid Lindgrens Värld (Astrid Lindgren's World) is a theme park based on her characters — primarily aimed at children but experiencing it with the books in mind gives it a different quality. The farm where she was born, nearby, is preserved as a museum with original interiors. The surrounding countryside, with its particular combination of red cottages, birch woods and stone walls, looks precisely as she described it.

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