Söderköpings Kommun
From the Göta Canal to the archipelago
The area of the municipality Söderköpings Kommun stretches from the picturesque archipelago of Sankt Anna at the Swedish east coast, along the long bay Slätbaken and the easternmost section of the Göta Canal to the lake Asplången at the western edge of the municipality.
Destinations & attractions in Söderköpings Kommun
Söderköpings Kommun is one of three municipalities on the coast of the southeast Swedish province Östergötlands Län and is located between the neighbouring municipalities Norrköpings Kommun in the north and Valdemarsviks Kommun in the south.
The landscape in the region consists of a constant alternation between rocky, wooded hills and fertile lowlands. Until the end of the last ice age, this area was still below the sea surface and only rose from the floods of the Baltic Sea in the past millennia due to the Scandinavian land uplift. The lowlands were once the seabed and the hills were archipelago islands, as there are still thousands of them off the coast.
Söderköping as a popular holiday region
The proximity to the beautiful Sankt Anna archipelago with several thousand, mostly wooded and uninhabited islands and islets makes the area in summer an extremely popular holiday region. The second big visitor magnet is the central town of the municipality, the picturesque small town Söderköping on the Göta Canal. On beautiful summer days, the promenade along the canal with its restaurants and cafés is particularly busy, followed by the historic town centre with its pretty old wooden houses from the 19th century.
Söderköping is also known as the starting point of the Göta Canal, the largest technical structure of the 19th century in Sweden. The canal begins a few kilometres east of the city, at the end of Slätbaken Bay, and forms the longest section of the waterway that crosses Sweden and connects the east coast with the Kattegatt on the west coast.
The municipality of Söderköping in figures
With just under 700 square kilometres, the municipal area is not particularly large. With around 15,000 inhabitants and a resulting population density of just under 22 inhabitants per square kilometre, it is on a level with the general Swedish average.
Almost exactly half of the inhabitants live in the immediate urban area of Söderköping, while the largest part of the municipality is much less populated. The next larger localities in the region are the villages Västra Husby and Östra Ryd with less than 500 inhabitants each.