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Sweden has one of the world's highest life expectancies. As of approximately August 12, 2004, the total population of Sweden for the first time exceeded 9,000,000, according to the SCB. As of February 2006, the population was 9,060,430. About 86.7% of the population is ethnic Swedish. The largest non-ethnically Swedish groups are the Finns, who make up about 2% of the population. Other significant ethnic groups are from the other Scandinavian countries, the former Yugoslavia, and the Middle East. An additional group that has a strong say based on tradition is the indigenous Sami people, living in northern Sweden and amounting to about 17,000 people. Sweden has been transformed from a nation of emigration ending after World War I to a nation of immigration from World War II onwards. Currently, almost 12% of the residents are born abroad, and about one fifth of Sweden's population are either immigrants or the children of immigrants. The largest immigrant groups are from Finland, the former Yugoslavia, the Middle East and then other Nordic Countries, in that order. This reflects the inter-Nordic migrations, earlier periods of labor immigration, and later decades of refugee and family immigration. Soviet intervention against the 1956 Hungarian Revolution and the 1968 Czechoslovak liberalization resulted in the first surges of intellectual political refugees. Some American deserters from the Vietnam War also found refuge among the Swedes, who in international politics took a clear stand against what they typically viewed as imperialism executed by both the Soviet Union and the United States of America. After the 1973 coup in Chile, and the following military dictatorships in Chile and other South American countries, political refugees came to dominate the image of immigration to Sweden, including refugees from Iran, Iraq and Palestine. Language Swedish is a North Germanic language, related and very similar to Danish and Norwegian, but differing in pronunciation and orthography. Sweden has no official language but Swedish holds a de facto status as such. The dominant language has always been Swedish and there has previously never been a political need to make it an official language. However, with the recognition of five minority languages of Sweden (Finnish, Meänkieli, Sami, Romani and Yiddish) on April 1, 2000, the issue of whether Swedish should be declared the official language was raised. On December 7, 2005, the parliament voted on this issue, but with a count of 147 to 145 due to voting errors by some members of parliament the proposal to make Swedish the official language failed. It was, however, strengthened as the principal language in that same proposal. A majority of Swedes, especially those under 60, are able to understand and speak English thanks to trade links, the popularity of overseas travel, a strong Anglo-American influence and the tradition of subtitling rather than dubbing foreign television shows and films. English became a compulsory subject for secondary school students studying natural sciences as early as 1849 and has been a compulsory subject for all Swedish students since the late 1940s. Depending on the local school authorities, English is currently a compulsory subject from third until ninth grade, and all students continuing in secondary school study English for at least another year. Most students also learn one and sometimes two additional languages; the most popular being Spanish, German and French. |
Sweden Information: Inside
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