The

demographic Demography () is the statistics, statistical study of human populations: their size, composition (e.g., ethnic group, age), and how they change through the interplay of fertility (births), mortality (deaths), and migration. Demographic analy ...

center of a country is the point to which the cumulative distance the registered population would have to travel is the smallest, were they all to meet at a single location. As the

population distribution Species distribution, or species dispersion, is the manner in which a biological taxon is spatially arranged. The geographic limits of a particular taxon's distribution is its range, often represented as shaded areas on a map. Patterns of distr ...

of a country changes, the demographic center will move. In

Sweden Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden, is a Nordic countries, Nordic country located on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. It borders Norway to the west and north, and Finland to the east. At , Sweden is the largest Nordic count ...

Statistics Sweden Statistics Sweden ( ; SCB, ) is the Swedish government agency operating under the Ministry of Finance and responsible for producing official statistics for decision-making, debate and research. The agency's responsibilities include: * developin ...

(Statistiska Centralbyrån, or SCB) calculates the official demographic center, using a

weighted mean The weighted arithmetic mean is similar to an ordinary arithmetic mean (the most common type of average), except that instead of each of the data points contributing equally to the final average, some data points contribute more than others. The ...

population per property, by

geographical coordinates A geographic coordinate system (GCS) is a spherical or geodetic coordinate system for measuring and communicating positions directly on Earth as latitude and longitude. It is the simplest, oldest, and most widely used type of the various s ...

. The calculation of the actual location of the central point as carried out by Statistics Sweden in 2007 determined Hjortkvarn as the location of Sweden's demographic center. The same calculation done in 1989 had resulted in naming Svennevad the central point. Both places are in the municipality of

Hallsberg Hallsberg () is a bimunicipal locality and the seat of Hallsberg Municipality, Örebro County, Sweden with 7,122 inhabitants in 2010. It is also partly located in Kumla Municipality. Overview This settlement grew up around a railway junction, ...

Örebro County Örebro County () is a county or '' län'' in central Sweden. It borders the counties of Västra Götaland, Värmland, Dalarna, Västmanland, Södermanland and Östergötland. It is frequently culturally divided into the hilly northern region of ...

. Over the 18 years between the calculations the center moved a few kilometres to the south, due to a decreasing population in northern Sweden and an increasing population in the south.

Sources

SCB Publication

Sweden's demographic centre, SCB.se, 2007-06-20
{{in lang, en Geography of Sweden Center of population

See also

Sources