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The Göta Canal () is a Swedish
canal Canals or artificial waterways are waterways or engineered channels built for drainage management (e.g. flood control and irrigation) or for conveyancing water transport vehicles (e.g. water taxi). They carry free, calm surface ...
constructed in the early 19th century. The canal is long, of which were dug or blasted, with a width varying between and a maximum depth of about .Uno Svedin, Britt Hägerhäll Aniansson, ''Sustainability, Local Democracy and the Future: The Swedish Model'', pp. 93–94. Springer, 2002. The speed is limited to 5
knot A knot is an intentional complication in Rope, cordage which may be practical or decorative, or both. Practical knots are classified by function, including List of hitch knots, hitches, List of bend knots, bends, List of loop knots, loop knots, ...
s in the canal. The Göta Canal is a part of a waterway long, linking a number of lakes and rivers to provide a route from
Gothenburg Gothenburg ( ; ) is the List of urban areas in Sweden by population, second-largest city in Sweden, after the capital Stockholm, and the fifth-largest in the Nordic countries. Situated by the Kattegat on the west coast of Sweden, it is the gub ...
(Göteborg) on the west coast to
Söderköping Söderköping is a Urban areas in Sweden, locality and the seat of Söderköping Municipality, Östergötland County, Sweden with 6,992 inhabitants in 2010. Söderköping is, despite its small population, for historical reasons normally still refe ...
on 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 ...
via the Trollhätte kanal and
Göta älv The (; "River of (the) Geats") is a river that drains lake Vänern into the Kattegat, at the city of Gothenburg, on the western coast of Sweden. It was formed at the end of the last glaciation, as an outflow channel from the Baltic Ice Lake to ...
river, through the large lakes
Vänern Vänern ( , , ) is the largest lake in Sweden, the largest lake in the European Union and the third-largest lake in Europe after Ladoga and Onega in Russia. It is located in the provinces of Västergötland, Dalsland, and Värmland in the sou ...
and
Vättern Vättern ( , ) is the second-largest lake in Sweden, after Vänern, and the sixth-largest lake in Europe. It is a long, finger-shaped body of fresh water in south central Sweden, to the southeast of Vänern, pointing at the tip of Scandinavia. ...
. This waterway was dubbed as Sweden's Blue Ribbon (). Contrary to the popular belief it is not correct to consider this waterway as a sort of ''greater'' Göta Canal: the Trollhätte Canal and the Göta Canal are completely separate entities.


History

The idea of a canal across southern Sweden was first put forward as early as 1516, by Hans Brask, the bishop of
Linköping Linköping ( , ) is a city in southern Sweden, with around 167,000 inhabitants as of 2024. It is the seat of Linköping Municipality and the capital of Östergötland County. Linköping is also the episcopal see of the Diocese of Linköping (Chu ...
. However, it was not until the start of the 19th century that Brask's proposals were put into action by Baltzar von Platen, a German-born former officer in the
Swedish Navy The Swedish Navy () is the maritime service branch of the Swedish Armed Forces. It is composed of surface and submarine naval units – the Fleet (), formally sometimes referred to as the Royal Navy () – as well as marine units, the Amph ...
. He organised the project and obtained the necessary financial and political backing. His plans attracted the enthusiastic backing of the government and the new king, Charles XIII, who saw the canal as a way of kick-starting the modernisation of Sweden. Von Platen himself extolled the modernising virtues of the canal in 1806, claiming that mining, agriculture and other industries would benefit from "a navigation way through the country." The project was inaugurated on 11 April 1810 with a budget of 24 million Swedish riksdalers. It was by far the greatest civil engineering project ever undertaken in Sweden up to that time, taking 22 years of effort by more than 58,000 workers. Much of the expertise and equipment had to be acquired from abroad, notably from
Britain Britain most often refers to: * Great Britain, a large island comprising the countries of England, Scotland and Wales * The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, a sovereign state in Europe comprising Great Britain and the north-eas ...
, whose canal system was the most advanced in the world at that time. The Scottish
civil engineer A civil engineer is a person who practices civil engineering – the application of planning, designing, constructing, maintaining, and operating infrastructure while protecting the public and environmental health, as well as improving existing i ...
Thomas Telford Thomas Telford (9 August 1757 – 2 September 1834) was a Scottish civil engineer. After establishing himself as an engineer of road and canal projects in Shropshire, he designed numerous infrastructure projects in his native Scotland, as well ...
, renowned for his design of the
Caledonian Canal The Caledonian Canal connects the Scottish east coast at Inverness with the west coast at Corpach near Fort William in Scotland. The canal was constructed in the early nineteenth century by Scottish engineer Thomas Telford. Route The can ...
in
Scotland Scotland is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It contains nearly one-third of the United Kingdom's land area, consisting of the northern part of the island of Great Britain and more than 790 adjac ...
, developed the initial plans for the canal and travelled to Sweden in 1810 to oversee some of the early work on the route. Many other British engineers and craftsmen were imported to assist with the project, along with significant quantities of equipment - even apparently mundane items such as pickaxes, spades and wheelbarrows. The Göta Canal was officially opened on 26 September 1832. Von Platen himself did not live to see the completion of the canal, having died shortly before its opening. However, the return on investment for the canal didn't live up to the hopes of the government. Bishop Hans Brask's original justifications for the canal's construction were the onerous
Sound Dues The Sound Dues (or Sound Tolls; ) were a toll on the use of the Øresund, or "Sound" strait separating the modern day borders of Denmark and Sweden. The tolls constituted up to two thirds of Denmark's state income in the 16th and 17th centurie ...
imposed by
Denmark–Norway Denmark–Norway (Danish language, Danish and Norwegian language, Norwegian: ) is a term for the 16th-to-19th-century multi-national and multi-lingual real unionFeldbæk 1998:11 consisting of the Kingdom of Denmark, the Kingdom of Norway (includ ...
on all vessels passing through the narrow
Øresund Øresund or Öresund (, ; ; ), commonly known in English as the Sound, is a strait which forms the Denmark–Sweden border, Danish–Swedish border, separating Zealand (Denmark) from Scania (Sweden). The strait has a length of ; its width var ...
channel between Sweden and Denmark and the trouble with the
Hanseatic League The Hanseatic League was a Middle Ages, medieval commercial and defensive network of merchant guilds and market towns in Central Europe, Central and Northern Europe, Northern Europe. Growing from a few Northern Germany, North German towns in the ...
. The canal enabled vessels travelling to or from the Baltic Sea to bypass the Øresund and so evade the Danish toll. In 1851, the tycoon André Oscar Wallenberg founded the Company for Swedish Canal Steamboat Transit Traffic to carry goods from England to Russia via the canal. However, it only ran two trips between
St Petersburg Saint Petersburg, formerly known as Petrograd and later Leningrad, is the List of cities and towns in Russia by population, second-largest city in Russia after Moscow. It is situated on the Neva, River Neva, at the head of the Gulf of Finland ...
and Hull via
Motala Motala () is a Urban areas in Sweden, locality and the seat of Motala Municipality, Östergötland County, Sweden with a municipal population of 43,717 inhabitants in 2024. It is the third largest city of Östergötland, following Linköping and N ...
before the
Crimean War The Crimean War was fought between the Russian Empire and an alliance of the Ottoman Empire, the Second French Empire, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, and the Kingdom of Sardinia (1720–1861), Kingdom of Sardinia-Piedmont fro ...
halted Anglo-Russian trade. After the war ended, the great powers pressured Denmark into ending the four-hundred-year-old tradition of the Sound Dues, thus eliminating at a stroke the canal's usefulness as an alternative to the Øresund. The arrival of the railways in 1855 quickly made the canal redundant, as trains could carry passengers and goods far more rapidly and did not have to shut down with the arrival of winter, which made the canal impassable for five months of the year. By the 1870s, the canal's goods traffic had dwindled to just three major types of bulk goods - forest products, coal and ore, none of which required rapid transportation. Traffic volumes stagnated after that and never recovered. The canal had one major industrial legacy in the shape of Motala Verkstad - a factory established in Motala to produce the machines such as cranes and steam dredgers that were needed to build the canal. This facility has sometimes been referred to as the "cradle of the Swedish engineering industry". After the canal was opened, Motala Verkstad focused on producing equipment, locomotives and rolling stock for the newly constructed railways, beginning a tradition of railway engineering that continues to this day in the form of AB Svenska Järnvägsverkstädernas Aeroplanavdelning (ASJA) that was bought by the aeroplane manufacturer SAAB in
Linköping Linköping ( , ) is a city in southern Sweden, with around 167,000 inhabitants as of 2024. It is the seat of Linköping Municipality and the capital of Östergötland County. Linköping is also the episcopal see of the Diocese of Linköping (Chu ...
.


Description

These days the canal is primarily used as a tourist and recreational attraction. Around two million people visit the canal each year on pleasure cruises - either on their own boats or on one of the many cruise ships - and related activities. The canal sometimes is ironically called the "divorce ditch" () because of the troubles that inexperienced couples have to endure while trying to navigate the narrow canal and the many locks by themselves.


Locks

The canal has 58 locks and can accommodate vessels up to long, wide and in
draft Draft, the draft, or draught may refer to: Watercraft dimensions * Draft (hull), the distance from waterline to keel of a vessel * Draft (sail), degree of curvature in a sail * Air draft, distance from waterline to the highest point on a v ...
.Gunnar Alexandersson, ''The Baltic Straits'', fn. 9 p. 123. Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 1982. From the east-coast of Sweden to Lake
Vänern Vänern ( , , ) is the largest lake in Sweden, the largest lake in the European Union and the third-largest lake in Europe after Ladoga and Onega in Russia. It is located in the provinces of Västergötland, Dalsland, and Värmland in the sou ...
the locks are as follows (with meters of height difference per lock): * Mem, 3 * Tegelbruket, 2.3 *
Söderköping Söderköping is a Urban areas in Sweden, locality and the seat of Söderköping Municipality, Östergötland County, Sweden with 6,992 inhabitants in 2010. Söderköping is, despite its small population, for historical reasons normally still refe ...
, 2.4 * Duvkullen nedre, 2.3 * Duvkullen övre, 2.4 * Mariehov nedre, 2.1 * Mariehov övre, 2.6 * Carlsborg nedre, 5.1 * Carlsborg övre, 4.7 * Klämman, open * Hulta, 3.2 * Bråttom, 2.3 * Norsholm, 0.8 * Carl Johans slussar (seven locks), 18.8 * Oskars slussar, 4.8 * Karl Ludvig Eugéns slussar, 5.5 * Brunnby, 5.3 * Heda, 5.2 * Borensberg, 0.2 * Borenshult, 15.3 *
Motala Motala () is a Urban areas in Sweden, locality and the seat of Motala Municipality, Östergötland County, Sweden with a municipal population of 43,717 inhabitants in 2024. It is the third largest city of Östergötland, following Linköping and N ...
, 0.1 ''Lake
Vättern Vättern ( , ) is the second-largest lake in Sweden, after Vänern, and the sixth-largest lake in Europe. It is a long, finger-shaped body of fresh water in south central Sweden, to the southeast of Vänern, pointing at the tip of Scandinavia. ...
'' (88 m above sea level) * Forsvik, 3.5 '' Lake Viken'' (92 m above sea level – canal's highest point) * Tåtorp, 0.2 * Hajstorp övre, 5.0 * Hajstorp nedre, 5.1 * Riksberg, 7.5 * Godhögen, 5.1 * Norrkvarn övre, 2.9 * Norrkvarn nedre, 2.9 * Sjötorp 7-8, 4.6 * Sjötorp 6, 2.4 * Sjötorp 4-5, 4.8 * Sjötorp 2-3, 4.8 * Sjötorp 1, 2.9 After Lake
Vänern Vänern ( , , ) is the largest lake in Sweden, the largest lake in the European Union and the third-largest lake in Europe after Ladoga and Onega in Russia. It is located in the provinces of Västergötland, Dalsland, and Värmland in the sou ...
(44 m above sea level) Trollhätte kanal to
Gothenburg Gothenburg ( ; ) is the List of urban areas in Sweden by population, second-largest city in Sweden, after the capital Stockholm, and the fifth-largest in the Nordic countries. Situated by the Kattegat on the west coast of Sweden, it is the gub ...
and the west-coast of Sweden.


See also

*
Caledonian Canal The Caledonian Canal connects the Scottish east coast at Inverness with the west coast at Corpach near Fort William in Scotland. The canal was constructed in the early nineteenth century by Scottish engineer Thomas Telford. Route The can ...
- Sister canal in
Scotland Scotland is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It contains nearly one-third of the United Kingdom's land area, consisting of the northern part of the island of Great Britain and more than 790 adjac ...
*
Kiel Canal The Kiel Canal (, until 1948 called in German the ) is a fresh water canal that links the North Sea () to the Baltic Sea (). It runs through the Germany, German states of Germany, state of Schleswig-Holstein, from Brunsbüttel to the Holtenau di ...
*
Øresund Øresund or Öresund (, ; ; ), commonly known in English as the Sound, is a strait which forms the Denmark–Sweden border, Danish–Swedish border, separating Zealand (Denmark) from Scania (Sweden). The strait has a length of ; its width var ...
* List of government enterprises of Sweden


Bibliography and references

*Eric de Maré, ''Swedish Cross Cut'', Sweden, 1965. (In English) * *


External links


Göta Canal
- Official site {{DEFAULTSORT:Gota Canal Canals opened in 1832 19th century in Sweden Canals in Sweden Government-owned companies of Sweden Tourist attractions in Sweden Works of Thomas Telford Historic Civil Engineering Landmarks Buildings and structures in Västra Götaland County Buildings and structures in Östergötland County 19th-century establishments in Östergötland County 19th-century establishments in Skaraborg County