Roslagen is the name of the coastal areas of Uppland province in

Sweden Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden, is a Nordic countries, Nordic country located on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. It borders Norway to the west and north, and Finland to the east. At , Sweden is the largest Nordic count ...

, which also constitutes the northern part of the Stockholm archipelago. Historically, it was the name for all the coastal areas of the

Baltic Sea The Baltic Sea is an arm of the Atlantic Ocean that is enclosed by the countries of Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Russia, Sweden, and the North European Plain, North and Central European Plain regions. It is the ...

, including the eastern parts of lake Mälaren, belonging to Svealand. The name was first mentioned in the year 1493 as "Rodzlagen". Before that the area was known as ''Roden''. Roden had a ''skeppslag'' (roughly translated: ship district), the coastal equivalent to the inland Hundreds. When the king would issue a call to leidang, the

Viking Age The Viking Age (about ) was the period during the Middle Ages when Norsemen known as Vikings undertook large-scale raiding, colonising, conquest, and trading throughout Europe and reached North America. The Viking Age applies not only to their ...

equivalent of military conscript service, the ''skeppslag'' in Roden was responsible for raising ships for the leidang

navy A navy, naval force, military maritime fleet, war navy, or maritime force is the military branch, branch of a nation's armed forces principally designated for naval warfare, naval and amphibious warfare; namely, lake-borne, riverine, littoral z ...

. The name comes from the ''rodslag'', which is an old coastal Uppland word for a rowing crew of warrior oarsmen. Etymologically, Roden, or Roslagen, is the source of the Finnish and Estonian names for

: and .The Russian Primary Chronicle: Laurentian Text Translated by O. P. Sherbowitz-Wetzor A person from Roslagen is called a Rospigg which means "inhabitant of Ros". Swedes from the Roslagen area, that is "the people of Ros", gave their name to the

Rus' people The Rus, also known as Russes, were a people in early medieval Eastern Europe. The scholarly consensus holds that they were originally Norsemen, mainly originating from present-day Sweden, who settled and ruled along the river-routes between t ...

and

Russia Russia, or the Russian Federation, is a country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia. It is the list of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the world, and extends across Time in Russia, eleven time zones, sharing Borders ...

(see Rus' (name)).Harper, Douglas
"Russia"
''Online Etymology Dictionary''. The area also gives its name to the endangered domesticated Roslag sheep, which originated from the area centuries ago.

Communications

The region is served by the

Roslagsbanan Roslagsbanan () is a Narrow-gauge railway, narrow-gauge commuter railway system in Roslagen, Stockholm County, Sweden. Its combined route length is and there are 38 stations. It is built to the Swedish three foot gauge railways, Swedish three fo ...

, a narrow-gauge railway network from Stockholm, going as far north as Kårsta. The motorway E18 goes through Roslagen between Kapellskär and Stockholm.

Nature

The hiking trail Roslagsleden crosses the region starting in Danderyd and ending in Grisslehamn.

References

External links

* http://www.roslagen.se/ Tourism page Regions of Sweden Coasts of the Baltic Sea Uppland History of the Rus' people {{Sweden-geo-stub Varangians

Communications

Nature

See also

References

External links