Storskifte Historical Maps of Sweden

Sweden Historical Maps of Sweden  Storskifte Historical Maps of Sweden



The Storskifte was the first land reform in Sweden. The purpose was to streamline the farm production. Up until this time, the farm lands had evolved under a system of fairness which meant that farmers were compensated for having good productive or poor land. In some cases, smaller farms had good productive soil and farms with poor soil were granted larger areas. In other cases, long skinny lots were created that had equal amounts of good and poor soil. Each farm also had their own “portion of use” of the village, its meadows, and fences.

This structure created problems over time that were challenging for the farmer to manage. The Storskifte consolidated the smaller pieces of land into larger fields for better management. The Storkifte law of 1757 limited each farm to a maximum of 4 strips per enclosed field or meadow. The process of Storskifte created about 40,000 maps that have been scanned and are available through the lantmäteriet website. For those villages that were never mapped in the äldre geometrisk kartor, the maps for the Storskifte might be the first map of the village. The maps for the Storskifte were created between the 1750's and 1820.

How to find Storskifte Historical Maps
1. Go to the Historiska kartor section of the Lantmäteriet website at: http://historiskakartor.lantmateriet.se/arken/s/search.html?locale=sv_SE

2. You will see 3 search fields on the left side of the screen, and the word ”Sök”. You can use these fields, but it is easier to use the Advanced Search options. Click on Avancerad sökning

3. Leave the default in the Arkiv:* field as: Lantmäterimyndigheternas arkiv

4. Choose a Län:* (County) from the drop down list.For example: Södermanland. If you're not sure of the County name see a list at: Counties of Sweden

5. Click on the little circle next to Socken/Arkivserie (to sort by Socken instead of Kommun)

6. Choose a Socken (parish) from the Socken /Arkivserie:* dropdown list.

7. Then click on Sök

Note: You can use the fields Traktnamn, Årtal, or Åtgärd if you want. The Åtgärd: drop down list allows you to search for a specific type of map. If you don’t use the fields Traktnamn, Årtal, or Åtgärd then you see a list of everything that is available for the parish.

8. After you click Sök, you will see a hits list.


 * The link to see the map is in the first column to the left.


 * The name of the “type of map” is in the middle column. For help with translation see the Historical Maps of Sweden Word List.


 * The year when the map or documents were made is in the far right column.

You can click on the numbers below the hits list to browse all the hits for this parish, or click on Nästa (Next) or Sista (Last) to move to the next list of hits.