Karlskoga Municipality

Karlskoga Municipality (population 31,293) is a Municipality, in Örebro County, in central Sweden. Its seat is in Karlskoga (pop. 28,000).

Geography

Karlskoga is part of a traditionally forest and mountain covered region, in Örebro County.

Such areas have traditionally been financially poor. This led to a significant Swedish emigration to North America from the disctrict in the latter half of the 19th century. Stockholm, Wisconsin was for instance founded in 1854 by immigrants from Karlskoga.

History

For centuries, Karlskoga was a small forest and mining community, not even a parish of its own. In the 17th century fourteen small iron works and eight waterdriven hammers for bar iron were established. Most of these were still operating in the 1860s, but the dominating iron works was the one in nearby Bofors. In 1871, Bofors produced 6,124 metric tons of iron, more than any other plant in Sweden. Karlskoga is also known as the home town to Alfred Nobel (born in 1833), inventor of dynamite and founder of the Nobel Prize. Not far from the centre of town is a Nobel Museum. In 1882, Karlskoga parish/municipality (socken) had 11,184 inhabitants.

Industry

The Bofors was incorporated in 1873 and has since the 1880s been specializing in the lucrative manufacture of cannon. Karlskoga has spent most of the 20th century as a growing company town to this cannon manufacturer. Only with the demilitarization in the most recent decades has this started to be a problem for the town. There were 8,500 workers in Bofors in 1980, but the number had decreased to 2,600 in 1998.

See also

• Karlskoga Mountain District

External links

• Karlskoga - Official site
• Bofors
• Nobel Museum