Facts...
Sweden is a small country and Luleå is a small town. There are about 75 000 people in the whole of Luleå and you can find a lot of them in the middle of the city, around
20 000-30 000 people live there. There are around 11 000 apartments in the centre. Many people live there because there are a lot of different jobs, a lot of stores. So people can support themselves and their family.
But if you decide to live or visit the outside of the middle city, you would see really few people but miles of beautiful nature.
Another reason why people live here in Luleå, is because we have, 1300 islands, over hundreds of miles of snowmobile tracks, our big ice, where you can spend hours of walking, ice skating, skiing or just look at our beautiful city, great sports... That’s maybe why there are so many people who live here in the northern part of Sweden.
I like Luleå because there are not too many or to few people up here. Like in Stockholm where there are too many people.
A little history...
About 1000 years ago, nomads came to Luleå. They built houses at the coast, which at the time was in Gammelstad. Later, when the government found out about the iron ore, merchants moved there. Ships departed from Gammelstad with Swedish products, like iron. Because of the uplift, the coast moved from Gammelstad to where it is now, in Luleå. Most of the people moved along with the coastline and because of that the centrum of Lulea moved from Gammelstad to where currently is
1887 a big fire erupted. A lot of buildings and houses burnt down, including the church, which had to be rebuilt completely. 1900 they built a new harbor in Luleå. Now Luleå doesn’t live of trading goods anymore, but the port is still left.
