Visingsö is an island in the southern half of

Lake Vättern A lake is an area filled with water, localized in a basin, surrounded by land, and distinct from any river or other outlet that serves to feed or drain the lake. Lakes lie on land and are not part of the ocean, although, like the much larger ...

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 country located on ...

. Visingsö lies north of the city Jönköping and west of Gränna from which two car ferries connect the island. The island is long and wide, with a total area of . According to legend, a giant named Vist created Visingsö by throwing a lump of soil into the lake so that his wife could use it to step over the lake.

History

In the 12th and 13th century,

Näs Castle Näs Castle (Swedish: ''Näs slottsruin'') is the ruins of a former castle at Visingsö parish in Jönköping County, Sweden. The ruins are on the southern end of the island of Visingsö in the southern part of Lake Vättern. History The fa ...

on the southern end of Visingsö was the residence for the fragile

Swedish monarchy The monarchy of Sweden is the monarchical head of state of Sweden,See the Instrument of Government, Chapter 1, Article 5. which is a constitutional and hereditary monarchy with a parliamentary system.Parliamentary system: see the Instrument o ...

. Four Swedish kings died there:

Karl Sverkersson Charles VII or Carl (Swedish: ''Karl Sverkersson''; c. 1130 – 12 April 1167) was ruler of Götaland, and then King of Sweden from c. 1161 to 1167, when he was assassinated in a military attack by Knut Eriksson who succeeded him as Canute I. He ...

Erik Knutsson Eric "X" (Swedish: ''Erik Knutsson''; Old Norse: ''Eiríkr Knútsson''; – 10 April 1216) was the King of Sweden between 1208 and 1216. Also known as ''Eric the Survivor'' (Swedish: "Erik som överlevde"), he was, at his accession to the thro ...

Johan Sverkersson John I ( sv, Johan Sverkersson; c. 1201 – 10 March 1222) was the king of Sweden from 1216 until his death. Background John was the son of King Sverker II of Sweden of the House of Sverker and Queen Ingegerd of the Bjälbo dynasty. When he was o ...

, and

Magnus Ladulås Magnus III ( 1240 – 18 December 1290), also called Magnus Ladulås, was King of Sweden from 1275 until his death in 1290. Name He was the ''first Magnus'' to rule Sweden for any length of time, not generally regarded as a usurper or ...

. Furthermore, in the 17th century the influential

Brahe family Brahe (originally ''Bragde'') is the name of two closely related Scanian noble families who were influential in both Danish and Swedish history. Danish family The first member of the family using the name Brahe is speculated to have been Verner B ...

resided in Visingsborg, a castle on the eastern side of the island. Both Näs Castle and Visingsborg are presently in ruins and well known landmarks of Visingsö. The

Swedish Navy The Swedish Navy ( sv, Svenska marinen) is the naval branch of the Swedish Armed Forces. It is composed of surface and submarine naval units – the Fleet () – as well as marine units, the Amphibious Corps (). In Swedish, vessels o ...

planted oak trees on the island beginning in 1831 to provide strategically important timber for future ship construction. Once the timber was ready to harvest it was no longer required for ship construction. The Swedish Navy declined to harvest the trees when offered them in 1975. Consequently, Visingsö is partially covered by oak forests, the rest being farmland.

Climate

Visingsö has an

oceanic climate An oceanic climate, also known as a marine climate, is the humid temperate climate sub-type in Köppen classification ''Cfb'', typical of west coasts in higher middle latitudes of continents, generally featuring cool summers and mild winters ( ...

( Köppen ''Cfb''), influenced by its position in the middle of the deep lake. As a result of Vättern's depth, it struggles both freezing over in winter as the surrounding landmass is colder, while in summer the temperature of the lake remains fairly cool. The relative warmth of Visingsö in summer is a result of Vättern being relatively narrow, resulting in warm air from the landmass only being slightly tempered. Temperatures below in winter are not very common annually due to the open water moderating the extremes. In spite of the unfavourable conditions for heat in its deep-lake position, Visingsö has warmer summers than all of the island of Ireland as well as much of Great Britain. Even so, the cold surface water enables air frosts to occur as late as May, in extreme instances. Visingsö is very dry for much of the year, although summers can be relatively wet.

Geology

Visingsö has long been of interest to geologists because of the development of a sedimentary series of rocks (the Visingsö Group) there (and elsewhere around Lake Vättern, especially on the west side). The surrounding rocks are largely much older "Småland granites" of mixed granite-like compositions. The Visingsö Group is approximately 1000 m thick and is divided into three units. It is Late Riphean in date. A wide array of late

Precambrian The Precambrian (or Pre-Cambrian, sometimes abbreviated pꞒ, or Cryptozoic) is the earliest part of Earth's history, set before the current Phanerozoic Eon. The Precambrian is so named because it preceded the Cambrian, the first period of the ...

fossils have been recovered from the group, including stromatolites, vase-shaped microfossils, acritarchs and macro fossils such as

Tawuia ''Tawuia'' is a millimetric disc-shaped, most likely multicellular macrofossil from the Neoproterozoic. It is considered to be synonymous with ''Chuaria'' and ''Longfengshania'', which, in turn, are thought to represent different life stages of ...

. The sediments of the Visingsö Group have been preserved within the Lake Vättern

graben In geology, a graben () is a depressed block of the crust of a planet or moon, bordered by parallel normal faults. Etymology ''Graben'' is a loan word from German, meaning 'ditch' or 'trench'. The word was first used in the geologic contex ...

structure.

Transportation

There are two car ferries that travel between Visingsö and Gränna on a continuous basis. There are several roads connecting communities on the island, that are also served by bus. There is also a small airfield on the north end of the island, consisting of two grass runways.

References

External links