Visit Uppsala

About Uppsala

Uppsala is Sweden's intellectual capital and fourth city — a calm, cycle-friendly university town of about 230,000 people on the Fyrisån river, 70km north of Stockholm, dominated by the soaring twin towers of Sweden's largest cathedral and the country's oldest and most prestigious university. Uppsala University, founded in 1477, is the oldest in the Nordic countries and continues to anchor the city's identity — don't miss the brilliant Gustavianum Museum (the original 17th-century university building, with the surviving anatomical theatre where the famous botanist Carl Linnaeus once taught), and the Linnaeus Garden (Linnéträdgården), the small botanical garden where Linnaeus developed his binomial nomenclature system for classifying every living organism on Earth. The 118m soaring brick Uppsala Cathedral (the largest church in Scandinavia, consecrated 1435) holds the tombs of three Swedish kings, the saint-king Erik IX (Sweden's patron), and Carl Linnaeus himself. Just 5km north of the city, the dramatically atmospheric Gamla Uppsala (Old Uppsala) — the pre-Christian pagan religious centre of Sweden with three Iron-Age royal burial mounds where Swedish kings were buried in the 5th and 6th centuries — is one of the country's most evocative archaeological sites. Don't miss the working Uppsala Castle, the dramatic medieval Stora Torget square, and the wonderful walk along the river.