''Post- och Inrikes Tidningar'' or ''PoIT'' (

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 ...

for "Post and Domestic Times") is the government

newspaper A newspaper is a periodical publication containing written information about current events and is often typed in black ink with a white or gray background. Newspapers can cover a wide variety of fields such as politics, business, spor ...

and

gazette A gazette is an official journal, a newspaper of record, or simply a newspaper. In English and French speaking countries, newspaper publishers have applied the name ''Gazette'' since the 17th century; today, numerous weekly and daily newspaper ...

Sweden Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden,The United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names states that the country's formal name is the Kingdom of SwedenUNGEGN World Geographical Names, Sweden./ref> is a Nordic countries, Nordic c ...

, and the country's official notification medium for announcements like

bankruptcy Bankruptcy is a legal process through which people or other entities who cannot repay debts to creditors may seek relief from some or all of their debts. In most jurisdictions, bankruptcy is imposed by a court order, often initiated by the debto ...

declarations or

auction An auction is usually a process of buying and selling goods or services by offering them up for bids, taking bids, and then selling the item to the highest bidder or buying the item from the lowest bidder. Some exceptions to this definition e ...

s. The newspaper also carries advertising, the largest advertiser being the Swedish Patent and Registration Office. It is the oldest currently published newspaper in the world, although as of the 1 January 2007 edition, it has switched over to an internet-only format. Four copies of each update to PoIT are still printed and archived at the

National Library of Sweden The National Library of Sweden ( sv, Kungliga biblioteket, ''KB'', meaning "the Royal Library") is Sweden's national library. It collects and preserves all domestic printed and audio-visual materials in Swedish, as well as content with Swedis ...

Lund University library Lund University Libraries is a network of public research libraries in Lund, Sweden Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden,The United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names states that the country's formal name is the Kingdom o ...

and the

Swedish Companies Registration Office Swedish Companies Registration Office ( sv, Bolagsverket), is a Swedish government agency which mainly handles the registration of new companies and registry changes for existing businesses, such as change of address and change of board of direct ...

History and profile

The newspaper was founded as the ''Ordinari Post Tijdender'' (meaning "Regular Mail Times" in English) in 1645 by

Queen Queen or QUEEN may refer to: Monarchy * Queen regnant, a female monarch of a Kingdom ** List of queens regnant * Queen consort, the wife of a reigning king * Queen dowager, the widow of a king * Queen mother, a queen dowager who is the mother ...

Christina and

Chancellor Chancellor ( la, cancellarius) is a title of various official positions in the governments of many nations. The original chancellors were the of Roman courts of justice—ushers, who sat at the or lattice work screens of a basilica or law cou ...

Axel Oxenstierna Axel Gustafsson Oxenstierna af Södermöre (; 1583–1654), Count of Södermöre, was a Swedish statesman. He became a member of the Swedish Privy Council in 1609 and served as Lord High Chancellor of Sweden from 1612 until his death. He was a c ...

. The paper was published weekly during early years. Nine years earlier, the royal postal agency (''

Kungliga Postverket PostNord Sverige (formerly ''Posten AB'') is the name of the Swedish postal service. In 2009 Posten merged with its Danish equivalent, Post Danmark A/S, forming PostNord AB, a holding company that is jointly owned by the Swedish (60%) and D ...

'') had been established and now all

postmaster A postmaster is the head of an individual post office, responsible for all postal activities in a specific post office. When a postmaster is responsible for an entire mail distribution organization (usually sponsored by a national government), ...

s in the country were required to submit reports of information they heard, and the newspaper was then distributed to public notice boards throughout the country. In 1791,

Gustav III Gustav III (29 March 1792), also called ''Gustavus III'', was King of Sweden from 1771 until his assassination in 1792. He was the eldest son of Adolf Frederick of Sweden and Queen Louisa Ulrika of Prussia. Gustav was a vocal opponent of what ...

designated the

Swedish Academy The Swedish Academy ( sv, Svenska Akademien), founded in 1786 by King Gustav III, is one of the Royal Academies of Sweden. Its 18 members, who are elected for life, comprise the highest Swedish language authority. Outside Scandinavia, it is bes ...

to distribute and publish the newspaper, a practice that continues today. In 1821 it merged with the ''Inrikes Tidningar'' ("Domestic Times") to form the ''Post- och Inrikes Tidningar''.Arkiv
Btj.se In the 17th and 18th centuries, it was the leading news source in the country, but by 1922, under competition from commercial papers, it had been reduced to publishing government, corporate, and legal announcements. As of 2000, ''Post- och Inrikes Tidningar'' is published online a
PointLex
and all editions from 1771 to 1860 are available at Project Tiden. The current director of the publication is

Horace Engdahl Horace Oscar Axel Engdahl (born 30 December 1948) is a Swedish literary historian and critic, and has been a member of the Swedish Academy since 1997. He was the permanent secretary of the Swedish Academy from 1999 to June 2009, when he was succe ...

, previously the permanent secretary of the Swedish Academy.

References

External links

Official site

World's oldest newspaper goes digital
{{Authority control 1645 establishments in Sweden Christina, Queen of Sweden Post och Inrikes Tidningar Defunct weekly newspapers Post och Inrikes Tidnigar Post och Inrikes Tidningar Swedish-language newspapers

History and profile

See also

References

External links