Östersund, Jämtland County, Jämtland Province, Sweden

Trade and commerce | Education

🇸🇪 Östersund is an urban area in Jämtland in the middle of Sweden. It is the seat of Östersund Municipality and the capital of Jämtland County. Östersund is located at the shores of Sweden's fifth largest lake, Storsjön, opposite the island Frösön, and is the only city in Jämtland.

Östersund is the region's cultural and economical centre and by tradition a city of trade and commerce. Östersund had one of the most extensive garrisons in Sweden prior to its closure in the early-21st century. The city is the Mid Sweden University's largest campus site with approximately 7,000 students. Östersund is the 22nd most populous city in Sweden, the 46th most populous city in Scandinavia, and by far the largest inland city in Northern Sweden.

The city was the only Swedish city founded and chartered in the 18th century. Östersund was founded in order to create a trade monopoly over Jämtland whose inhabitants' lucrative trade annoyed the Swedish Crown. The intention was to persuade the local farmers to deliver merchandise to middlemen in Östersund, but the population opposed this economic philosophy, and Östersund long remained small. It took until the end of the 19th century for Östersund to truly become a city, after the arrival of the railroad and the economic liberalization of that time.

Östersund is situated in inland Scandinavia and connected to Sundsvall in the east on the Swedish coast, and Trondheim in the west at the shores of the Norwegian Sea. Östersund is located in the middle of Scandinavia, in the middle of Sweden, in the middle of Jämtland County and in the middle of Östersund Municipality. As the most centrally located city in Sweden, the city credits itself as the centre of Sweden.

Östersund is marketed as Vinterstaden – Winter City. Winter City as a project is run by the municipality together with city enterprises. While winters are long, the local climate is only moderately cold by elevated and northerly Swedish standards, but with chilly summers. Östersund has had a long history as a centre of outdoor activities with a modern cross-country ski stadium and an actual piste in the city itself. Östersund has also hosted several World Championships in various sports such as biathlon, speed skating and ski orienteering along with Swedish National Championships in cross-country skiing and snocross. The city has been the applicant city of Sweden for several Winter Olympic Games, but has yet to host one. The precursor to the Winter Olympic Games, the Nordic Games, were however held at several occasions in the city, due to lack of snow in Stockholm.

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Trade and commerce Like the rest of Jämtland Östersund is heavily dominated by many small businesses. The city is the centre of trade and commerce in Jämtland County and has more than 300 shops. The retail trade's turnover is 30 per cent higher than it ought to be, given the number of inhabitants the city has. Trade in the central business district (Staden – 'the city') is mostly concentrated on the shopping and pedestrian street Prästgatan where large local shopping malls such as Kärnan and Mittpunkten along with department stores such as Åhléns are located. There are large clothing companies such as H&M and Lindex and smaller ones like WESC, approximately 50 restaurants, shoe stores, sporting goods retailers like Stadium and Intersport, several supermarkets (Östersund has rather few convenience stores), etc. Storgatan, the street that runs parallel with Prästgatan, is also lined with shops, restaurants and coffeehouses. Unlike Prästgatan this street is not a pedestrian street. Östersund is the city in Sweden with the most square metres of window display per capita. The most prominent figure in Östersund's business life throughout the 20th century was the car salesman (who started out selling horses) Sven O. Persson, founder of Persson Invest, Byggelit and Bilbolaget. A significant real estate owner was Maths O. Sundqvist (1950–2012).

Östersund has had a long history as a marketplace with the already mentioned ancient Gregorie market, tracing its lineage back to the 11th century, held in early March. Despite being banned in 1914, it continued to be held for a couple of years. In 1950, the market was reborn shortly and was completely resurrected in 1986, when the city celebrated its 200th anniversary, and has been held yearly since then. In 1948, when the markets were non-existent, visions to restore Östersund's market traditions in a modern version were brought up. The result was the trade fair Expo Norr, initiated in 1950 in order to strengthen Östersund as a leading centre of trade in the northern parts of Sweden. The trade fair is an annual event just like Gregorie market, though Expo Norr is held during the summer and not during the winter. Expo Norr is usually attended by 30,000 individuals every year.

Like many other county capitals in Sweden the county council and the municipality are among the largest employers.

Besides trading and public services Östersund has some larger companies such as Solectron, Cybercom, Volex, Husqvarna AB, Swedbank's telephone bank and Telia. Companies such as the dairy cooperation Milko and Inlandsbanan AB have located their corporate headquarters in the city.

A national survey done by the Confederation of Swedish Enterprise shows that out of every company in Östersund Municipality 52 per cent are "very positive towards globalization", thus ranking Östersund at number eight in Sweden as the most globalization-friendly municipality (2008).

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Education Östersund recently became a university city and the Mid Sweden University has its largest campus site in Östersund with well over 7,000 students. The Mid Sweden University was a university college (högskola) named Mitthögskolan until it was granted university status in 2005, making it the youngest university in Sweden. Mitthögskolan was the result of the merger between the University College of Sundsvall/Härnösand (Högskolan i Sundsvall/Härnösand) and the University College of Östersund (Högskolan i Östersund)

Östersund is a centre for the research in social sciences (business administration, psychology, sociology and political science) and social work, whilst the research in Health Sciences is split between Östersund and Sundsvall.

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Östersund, Jämtland County, Sweden 
Östersund, Jämtland County, Sweden
Image: Adobe Stock dudlajzov #286186116

Östersund has a population of over 50,960 people. Östersund also forms the centre of the wider Jämtland County which has a population of over 115,331 people.

To set up a UBI Lab for Östersund see: https://www.ubilabnetwork.org Twitter: https://twitter.com/UBILabNetwork

Östersund is a member of the UNESCO Creative Cities Network for Gastronomy see: https://en.unesco.org/creative-cities

Twin Towns, Sister Cities Östersund has links with:

🇨🇳 Jilin, China 🇫🇮 Kajaani, Finland 🇩🇰 Odense, Denmark
Text Atribution: Wikipedia Text under CC-BY-SA license

Antipodal to Östersund is: -165.367,-63.167

Locations Near: Östersund 14.6333,63.1667

🇸🇪 Falun 15.629,60.604 d: 289.6  

🇸🇪 Sundsvall 17.332,62.4 d: 161.5  

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🇳🇴 Steinkjer 11.498,64.013 d: 181.4  

🇸🇪 Härnösand 17.933,62.633 d: 177.3  

🇸🇪 Gävle 17.142,60.675 d: 306.6  

🇸🇪 Örebro 15.222,59.279 d: 433.4  

🇸🇪 Karlstad 13.5,59.367 d: 426.8  

🇸🇪 Västerås 16.551,59.617 d: 407.7  

🇸🇪 Örnsköldsvik 18.7,63.283 d: 204.1  

Antipodal to: Östersund -165.367,-63.167

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🇦🇸 Pago Pago -170.701,-14.279 d: 14563.1  

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