This is a list of cities in modern Sweden that once enjoyed city privileges, thus were entitled to call themselves town (Swedish: stad, plural städer). The year indicates the year they were established or when they were granted a royal charter. The list does not include towns in Finland established during Swedish rule.
Overview
Legally and administratively, the term stad is not used in Sweden since the municipal reform of 1971, when the municipality (kommun) became the only existing form of local government. Before the reform there were 132 urban centres (133 to 1966) that had the title of stad.
The decision to call themselves stad has been taken purely for image and marketing reasons. In legal situations the word kommun (municipality) must be included in the municipality's name and governmental authorities will only refer to them by their legal names.
^Skanör and Falsterbo were joined together administratively in 1754 by the name Skanör med Falsterbo; they merged into a single urban area in the 1960s, still keeping their separate identities as two towns.
Today
Most of the former towns are today urban centres (tätorter) and seats of their municipalities. Two seats/former towns and municipalities have a different name: Djursholm is the seat of Danderyd Municipality and Visby is the seat of Gotland Municipality.
A number of suburban towns have grown together with neighbours and are nowadays seldom considered as separate towns:
Lidingö (separated from Stockholm by water, but anyhow often counted to its urban area although according to Statistics Sweden, Lidingö is an urban area of its own)
The following are not seats of their municipalities: