The first nationwide census in Sweden (and Finland) was conducted in 1749 by the newly established Tabellverket, which would later become Statistiska centralbyrån. This made Sweden the first country in the world with a national census strategy.
Other countries had also conducted censuses at this time, such as Iceland in 1703, but these were considered to be sporadic censuses rather than a national strategy of regular censuses.
The censuses were eventually conducted every ten years. At the Swedish National Archives (SVAR) there are the digitized censuses for the whole of Sweden from 1880-1930 searchable online. The censuses from 1860 and 1870 are only available for a limited part of the country.
Censuses on CD or DVD
In addition to several of the earlier censuses in Sweden being fully searchable at the Swedish National Archives, they also release a CD/DVD for several of the censuses. The Swedish National Archives (SVAR) has released CD/DVDs for the 1880, 1890, 1900, 1970, 1980 and 1990 censuses.
1930 census
Work is now underway to make Sweden's 1930 census searchable. This is extensive work and employs as many as 19 people. The Swedish Migration Center has taken on the task.
The 1930 census is considered quite unique as it contains information about gender, occupation, geographical location, marital status AND information about school, children in the household, income and wealth.
