A is a type of

croft Croft may refer to: Occupations * Croft (land), a small area of land, often with a crofter's dwelling * Crofting, small-scale food production * Bleachfield, an open space used for the bleaching of fabric, also called a croft Locations In the Uni ...

emblematic of the Swedish countryside. It comes from the

Old Norse Old Norse, Old Nordic, or Old Scandinavian, is a stage of development of North Germanic languages, North Germanic dialects before their final divergence into separate Nordic languages. Old Norse was spoken by inhabitants of Scandinavia and t ...

. In modern usage, it is the emblematic Swedish

summer house A summer house or summerhouse has traditionally referred to a building or shelter used for relaxation in warm weather. This would often take the form of a small, roofed building on the grounds of a larger one, but could also be built in a garden ...

, a small

cottage A cottage, during Feudalism in England, England's feudal period, was the holding by a cottager (known as a Cotter (farmer), cotter or ''bordar'') of a small house with enough garden to feed a family and in return for the cottage, the cottager ...

painted

Falu red Falu red or falun red ( ; sv, falu rödfärg, ) is a permeable red paint commonly used on wooden cottages and barns in Sweden, Finland, and Norway. History Following hundreds of years of mining in Falun, large piles of residual product wer ...

and white, and evidence of the way in which urbanization came quite late to all of

Scandinavia Scandinavia; Sámi languages: /. ( ) is a subregion#Europe, subregion in Northern Europe, with strong historical, cultural, and linguistic ties between its constituent peoples. In English usage, ''Scandinavia'' most commonly refers to Denmark, ...

. Its characteristic colour is ubiquitous in Sweden and became popular due to the paint's affordability. In the meaning of "simple second home", the concept exists under other names in

Danish Danish may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to the country of Denmark People * A national or citizen of Denmark, also called a "Dane," see Demographics of Denmark * Culture of Denmark * Danish people or Danes, people with a Danish a ...

Norwegian Norwegian, Norwayan, or Norsk may refer to: *Something of, from, or related to Norway, a country in northwestern Europe *Norwegians, both a nation and an ethnic group native to Norway *Demographics of Norway *The Norwegian language, including the ...

( – but the term is also used in Norwegian) and

Finnish Finnish may refer to: * Something or someone from, or related to Finland * Culture of Finland * Finnish people or Finns, the primary ethnic group in Finland * Finnish language, the national language of the Finnish people * Finnish cuisine See also ...

( or ). The word is cognate with the English ''

thorp ''Thorp'' is a Middle English word for a hamlet or small village. Etymology The name can either come from Old Norse ''þorp'' (also ''thorp''), or from Old English (Anglo-Saxon) ''þrop''. There are many place names in England with the suffi ...

'' (a secondary settlement or small group of houses in the countryside), which is found in many

English placenames The toponymy of England derives from a variety of linguistic origins. Many English toponyms have been corrupted and broken down over the years, due to language changes which have caused the original meanings to be lost. In some cases, words used ...

. Its meaning in Swedish has shifted over time. Before the 16th century, a ''torp'' was a separate farm, usually established by a farmer who had moved out from a village, and which often grew to become a village in its own right. In 16th-century Sweden, which at that time included

Finland Finland ( fi, Suomi ; sv, Finland ), officially the Republic of Finland (; ), is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It shares land borders with Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of B ...

, a ''torp'' was the term for the smallest size of the farm, paying a quarter of a "full" farm's taxes. When that classification became obsolete, a ''torp'' became a leased farm (with short lease times typically of one or two years), paid for with manual work on the owner's fields. Since the mid-20th century, most of the surviving ''torp'' cottages in Scandinavia have come to serve as summer homes for city dwellers. Before that, being brought up in a ''torp'' was a sign of relatively modest ancestry, with lower status than that of lifelong tenants—and very much lower than that of freeholding farmers, however small their farm—although ''torp'' dwellers were higher on the social scale than farmhands, maids and those who lived in paupers' cottages (''

backstugusittare A Backstugusittare ("hill cottage sitter") is a historical term of a certain category of the country side population in the history of Sweden. It referred to the inhabitants of a backstuga (hill cottage), who lived on common land or the land of some ...

''). In Danish and Norwegian, the common noun for an inhabitant of a torp is ''husmann/husmand'' – a man with a house. Such men owned their houses, but no land. In Swedish, the term ''husbonde'' remain in archaic form. ''Torp'' is also used as a surname in Scandinavia.

References

{{reflist, 30em Place name element etymologies Danish-language surnames House types