Sweden's west coast port — canals, seafood, and the friendliest Swedish city
Gothenburg (Göteborg) is Sweden's second city and most liveable — a port city on the west coast built by the Dutch in 1621, with a canal system that gives it a low-key Amsterdam feel, one of Europe's finest seafood markets, and the Haga district of 19th-century wooden houses famous for Sweden's largest cinnamon bun. The Universeum science museum and the Gothenburg Museum of Art are the cultural anchors; Liseberg, one of Scandinavia's biggest amusement parks, is right in the city centre; and the Gothenburg archipelago (Bohuslän coast) — reached by ferry in 20 minutes — is some of the most beau…
Gothenburg was founded in 1621 by King Gustav II Adolf, partly to give Sweden a North Sea port free from the sound tolls the Danes levied at Elsinore. The city's Dutch influence (Dutch engineers built the canal system) shaped its character differently from Stockholm. The Swedish East India Company was headquartered here from 1731 to 1813, trading porcelain, silk, and spices from Canton — the original China Tea Company warehouse on the waterfront (now the Gothenburg Museum of History) still stands. 19th-century industrialization, led by the SKF ball-bearing company and the Volvo car factory (s…