Sweden

Sweden - Is officially known as the Kingdom of Sweden. Sweden shares borders with Norway, Finland, the Gulf of Bothnia, the Baltic Sea and is connected to Denmark by the Öresund Bridge. Sweden has not participated in any war in almost two centuries. An armed neutrality was preserved in both World Wars. Sweden's long-successful economic formula of a capitalist system interlarded with substantial welfare elements was challenged in the 1990s by high unemployment and in 2000-02 by the global economic downturn, but fiscal discipline over the past several years has allowed the country to weather economic vagaries. Sweden joined the European Union in 1995, but the public rejected the introduction of the euro in 2003. Timber, hydro power, and iron ore constitute the resource base of an economy heavily oriented toward foreign trade. Privately owned firms account for about 90% of industrial output, of which the engineering sector accounts for 50% of output and exports.
Sweden's prehistory begins in the Allerød warm period 12,000 BC with Late Palaeolithic reindeer-hunting camps of the Bromme culture at the edge of the ice in what is now the country's southernmost province. This period was characterized by small bands of hunter-gatherer-fishers using flint technology.