Malmskillnadsgatan ( Swedish: "The Ridge Dividing Street") is a 650-metre long

street A street is a public thoroughfare in a city, town or village, typically lined with Building, buildings on one or both sides. Streets often include pavements (sidewalks), pedestrian crossings, and sometimes amenities like Street light, streetligh ...

in central

Stockholm Stockholm (; ) is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in Sweden by population, most populous city of Sweden, as well as the List of urban areas in the Nordic countries, largest urban area in the Nordic countries. Approximately ...

, Sweden. It stretches northward from the Brunkebergstorg square over

Hamngatan Hamngatan (Swedish: ''Port Street'') is a street in central Stockholm. It goes from Sergels torg down to Nybroplan, past NK department store, Kungsträdgården, Norrmalmstorg, and Berzelii Park. The Djurgården line travels along this street be ...

; crosses Mäster Samuelsgatan and Oxtorgsgatan; passes over the bridge Malmskillnad Bridge passing over Kungsgatan; crosses Brunnsgatan and David Bagares gata; and finally ends at Johannes plan near Döbelnsgatan. In today's Sweden, at the end of the last

ice age An ice age is a long period of reduction in the temperature of Earth's surface and atmosphere, resulting in the presence or expansion of continental and polar ice sheets and alpine glaciers. Earth's climate alternates between ice ages, and g ...

, the retiring

ice sheet In glaciology, an ice sheet, also known as a continental glacier, is a mass of glacier, glacial ice that covers surrounding terrain and is greater than . The only current ice sheets are the Antarctic ice sheet and the Greenland ice sheet. Ice s ...

left behind several ridges filled with

sand Sand is a granular material composed of finely divided mineral particles. Sand has various compositions but is usually defined by its grain size. Sand grains are smaller than gravel and coarser than silt. Sand can also refer to a textural ...

and rounded

gravel Gravel () is a loose aggregation of rock fragments. Gravel occurs naturally on Earth as a result of sedimentation, sedimentary and erosion, erosive geological processes; it is also produced in large quantities commercially as crushed stone. Gr ...

, ridges called ''malmar'' (sing. ''malm'') in Swedish. In the central-northern part of Stockholm, the Brunkebergsåsen, divided the

Norrmalm Norrmalm is a city district in Stockholm, Sweden. History Norrmalm is a part of the larger borough of Norrmalm (''Norrmalms stadsdelsområde''). The southern part of the district, Lower Norrmalm (''Nedre Norrmalm''), also known as the City, ...

district in an eastern and western part,

Östermalm Östermalm (; "Eastern city-borough") is a 2.56 km2 large district in central Stockholm, Sweden. With 71,802 inhabitants, it is one of Sweden's most populous and exclusive districts. It is an extremely expensive area, having the highest ho ...

and Västermalm, and Malmskillnadsgatan is a street passing along the top of the ridge. First appearing in documents from the 17th century, the name ''Malmskillnaden'' arguably designated some sort of road passing over the Ridge of Brunkeberg, an eventuality obscured by the appearance of the name ''Skillnadsgatan'' ("The difference/Divergence street"). The street itself first appears in a map dated 1640, detailing the planned development of Norrmalm, but due to the excavation required, Malmskillnadsgatan was to remain an impracticable for some time. In the late 17th century however, a street called ''Malm skillnadz gatun'' is stretching north from Brunkebergstorg to Oxtorget, where a sand hill separated it from what is today its northern section. During the 1710s, finally, the street was entirely united as can be seen in a map dated 1733. In association with the post-war redevelopment of central Stockholm, the residential area along the southern part of the street was transformed into a business area, isolated from the surrounding shopping district. During the 1970s and 1980s, Malmskillnadsgatan (with

Artillerigatan Artillerigatan is a street in the district of Östermalm in Stockholm, Sweden. History Artillerigatan was previously divided into three street sections; ''Löjtnantsgatan'' in the southern part (around Riddargatan), ''Artillerigatan'' (betwee ...

in the Östermalm district) was a traditional site for

street prostitution Street prostitution is a form of prostitution in which a prostitute solicitation, solicits customers from a public place, most commonly a street, while waiting at street corners or walking alongside a street, but also other public places such as ...

in Stockholm), as the isolated location of the street made it completely abandoned after business hours.

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See also