Malmskillnadsgatan (

Swedish Swedish or ' may refer to: Anything from or related to Sweden, a country in Northern Europe. Or, specifically: * Swedish language, a North Germanic language spoken primarily in Sweden and Finland ** Swedish alphabet, the official alphabet used by ...

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

street A street is a public thoroughfare in a built environment. It is a public parcel of land adjoining buildings in an urban context, on which people may freely assemble, interact, and move about. A street can be as simple as a level patch of dirt, ...

in central

Stockholm Stockholm () is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in Sweden by population, largest city of Sweden as well as the List of urban areas in the Nordic countries, largest urban area in Scandinavia. Approximately 980,000 people liv ...

, 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 bet ...

; crosses Mäster Samuelsgatan and Oxtorgsgatan; passes over the bridge

Malmskillnad Bridge Malmskillnadsbron (''The Malmskillnad Bridge'') is an arch bridge in central Stockholm, Sweden. It takes the street Malmskillnadsgatan over Kungsgatan flanked on its east side by two Art Deco towers called Kungstornen. For an explanation of ''Malm ...

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 gree ...

, the retiring

ice sheet In glaciology, an ice sheet, also known as a continental glacier, is a mass of glacial ice that covers surrounding terrain and is greater than . The only current ice sheets are in Antarctica and Greenland; during the Last Glacial Period at Las ...

left behind several ridges filled with

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

and rounded

gravel Gravel is a loose aggregation of rock fragments. Gravel occurs naturally throughout the world as a result of sedimentary and erosive geologic processes; it is also produced in large quantities commercially as crushed stone. Gravel is classifi ...

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

Brunkebergsåsen Brunkebergsåsen was an esker that once reached over much of Stockholm's Norrmalm district. Geologically, it is a part of the much larger Stockholmsåsen. It formed a considerable obstacle to traffic, effectively dividing Norrmalm into a western ...

, divided the

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

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 the most populous districts in Stockholm. It is an extremely expensive area, having the highest housing p ...

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 in the Östermalm district) was a traditional site for

street prostitution Street prostitution is a form of sex work in which a sex worker 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 parks, benches, e ...

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

References

See also