Krigsarkivets Historical Maps of Sweden

Sweden Historical Maps of Sweden  Krigsarkivets Historical Maps of Sweden



Another source for historical maps is through the Krigsarkiv (Archive for the Department of War) collections, which can also be found through Riksarkivets homepage at www.riksarkivet.se. After you click on “Krigsarkivet”, look for the link Krigsarkivets kartor och ritningar.

Krigsarkivet was established in 1805. It has records from the 1500's and forward. The archive also has about 35,000 maps from the 1600's to the early 1800's. Many of the maps are associated to Swedish military history, but many are general reference maps. These maps are from all over Sweden and the world.

They also have drawings of soldiers and sailors in uniform. Krigsarkivet is in the process of scanning maps and putting them up on their website. Many of the maps are only available as Översiktbild which is a smaller image file seen online. Others are listed as Detaljbild that was scanned as a bigger file, and can be downloaded as a PDF for free.

How to Search the Krigsarkivet kartor och ritningar
1. Go to Krigsarkivets kartor och ritningar

2. On this page you will see a table with links. Click on the link Register for the type of map and time period that you are interested in. For example: Register till samling 0400 Sverige, topografiska kartor. The far right column is a short description showing how many maps belong to a collection and the time period they are from. In this example, there are 2,600 maps from the 1500's - 1990.

3. From here, you will see a table that shows the areas in Sweden in the left column, the choice of Generalkartor in the middle, and Deljkartor to the far right.


 * The link Generalkartor is for general maps (such as the entire County or Area)
 * The link Detaljkartor is for detailed maps of smaller areas (such as a parish or village)

4. After you have clicked on Generalkartor or Detaljkartor, you will see a list that identifies each map. For example: 0400:05B:010 Karta öfver Kumla Socken i Westerås Län., 1828 Översiktsbild | Detaljbild (endast inom KrA)


 * The numbers 0400:05B:010 are a map i.d.
 * Karta öfver Kumla Socken i Westerås Län is the name of the map.
 * 1828 is when the map was made
 * Översiktsbild or Detaljbild, refers to the scanned resolution.

- Överstiktsbild is a general view that you can see online. After the map opens, you can do a "left click on the mouse" to do a "Save image as" for your copy (or use another program such as Irfanview to do a screen capture.)

- Detaljbild is a high resolution image, but it is only available if you are visiting Krigsarkivet. Otherwise contact Krigsarkivet by e-mail to get a Detaljbild if it is really needed.