GOTHENBURG (Swedish, Göteborg), the second city and chief commercial town of Sweden, and the capital of a “län” of the same name, is situated in a low valley surrounded by bare hills, on the south bank and 1∣ miles from the mouth of the Götha river, 282 miles W.S.W. of Stockholm by rail (by the Götha Canal 370 miles). Gothenburg is well and regularly built, mostly of stone or brick, with wide and well-paved streets, and in its general appearance much resembles an English town. It consists of two main portions, the town proper and its suburbs,—together 5∣ square miles in extent. The first may be described as a semicircle extending south-eastward over a marshy flat from the bank of the Götha as its diameter. This semicircle is crossed by the East and West Harbour Canals and from east to west by the Great Harbour Canal, which divides the town proper into two parts, a north and a south. The canals are enclosed with hewn stone, lined with trees, and crossed by 24 iron bridges. The finest streets of Gothenburg are the North and South Harbour Streets. Gustavus Adolphus’s Tory (market-place), with a bronze statue of Gustavus Adolphus by Fogelberg, occupies the centre of the town, while the principal market-place is now (since 1849) Kungstorejet (the king’s market-place). The favourite promenades are the Horticultural Society’s Park, the King’s Park, with Molin’s group (the Beltbucklers) and the Nya Alleen (new alleys), situated on the south outskirts. Gothenburg has seven Lutheran churches, of which the finest are the cathedral {Custavii Domkyrka), called after Gustavus Adolphus, founded 1633, rebuilt after fires in 1742 and 1815, now a cruciform structure 173 feet high and 194 feet long by 75 feet broad, Haga church, erected in 1856, and the German ...church, rebuilt 1747-1798; an English Episcopal church (1855); a Catholic chapel; and a synagogue (1855). The other chief buildings are the exchange, in Italian style (1844), with marble statues of Odin by Fogelberg (1855), and of Oscar I. by Molin (1855); the residence house, built by Torstenson after the Thirty Years’ War; the townhouse, founded 1670, enlarged 1814; the old kronhus, where the diet of 1660 was held; the new custom-house (1866); the artillery barracks (1806) for 750 men; the prison (1854); the railway station (1858); the arsenal (1860); the new theatre (1856-59) seated for 1030; and the Sahlgreu new hospital (1848-55). Gothenburg is the seat of a bishop and of a provincial governor. It has 34 schools of various kinds, including two Latin schools, a schoolteachers’ seminary, an extensive Elementärdäroverk, founded 1630, rebuilt 1859, with a library of 15,000 vols., a trade institute, the Chalmers’ technical school (1869), another technical school (1848), a “real-gymnasium” (1844), and a navigation-school (1862). The museum, founded in 1833, contains collections for natural history, entomology, anatomy, botany, archaeology, and ethnography, a picture and sculpture gallery, and a collection of 6000 coins and medals. Gothenburg has numerous benevolent and charitable institutions, mainly supported by the munificence of private citizens. The industries are shipbuilding (carried on in four docks), linen and cotton weaving, brewing, and the manufacture of furniture, machinery, lucifer-matches, paper, sugar, and tobacco. In 1877, 2213 ships of 532,127 tons (Swedish, 1221 of 270,900 tons; British, 267 of 130,219 tons) entered at the port, while 1781 ships of 526,352 tons (British, 264 of 118,236 tons) cleared. The mercantile fleet belonging to Gothenburg consisted on January 1, 1878, of 65 steamships of 21,215 tons, and 156 sailing vessels of 63,913 tons. The exports in 1877 amounted in value to £2,437,200. These included 8,107,326 cubic feet of deals, boards, and battens (6,021,546 cubic feet to England); 6,065,408 cubic feet of pit-props and other timber, besides 7,246,056 pieces of oak and other staves, and laths and carpenters’ work valued at £80,083; 90,460 tons of iron and steel (62,480 tons to England); 333,194 quarters of grain, chiefly oats (265,655 quarters to England); also beans and pease, lucifer matches, 2667 head of cattle, and 38,578 cwts. of butter. The imports in the same year amounted to £3,865,000, chiefly made up of cotton (14,540,996 lb) and cotton yarn (3,608,355 tt>), wool and woollen yarn (3,397,757 ft>), raw sugar (17,289,777 lb), refined sugar (6,512,919 tt>), coffee (8,239,346 lb), molasses (4,883,021 K»), rice (3,246,247 lb), olive oil (2,443,804 lb), salt (796,208 cubic feet), coal and coke (246,205 tons), iron rails (32,059 tons), petroleum (13,243,408 lb), hides (2,346,577 lb), aud paper (712,538 lb). Under the peculiar licensing system initiated in Gothenburg October 1, 1865, the town authorities contract for three years with a limited company, which takes the whole number of licences for selling brändin, and hands over to the town treasury the net proceeds of its trade. These amounted to £40,103 in the year ending October 1, 1876, when the company sold 383,561 gallons of spirits, 178,133 gallons of which were consumed on the public-house premises, and realized a gross profit of £52,850. The licences issued have been reduced from 119 in 1865 to 56 in 1876. All “bars” are closed from 6 p.m. on Saturday to 8 a.m. on Monday, and in the period 1866-76 apprehensions for drunkenness have on the average decreased 22 per cent., though since 1870 there has been a slight increase (in 1876, 2357 persons were fined), usually attributed to the higher rate of wages and the greater efficiency of the police. The population of Gothenburg, including suburbs, was 71,707 in 1877.
Founded by Gustavus Adolphus in 1619, Gothenburg was from the first designed to be fortified, a town of the same name founded on Hisingen (an island 44 square miles in area between the two arms of the Gotha river) having been destroyed by the Danes during the Calmar war. From 1621, when it was first chartered, it steadily increased, though it suffered greatly in the Danish wars of the last half of the 17th and the beginning of the 18th centuries, and from several extensive conflagrations (the last in 1813), which have destroyed important records of its history. The great development of its heιτing fishery in the latter part of the 18th century gave a new impulse to the city’s trade, which was kept up by the influence of the “Continental System,’’ under which Gothenburg became a depot for the colonial merchandise of England. After the fall of Napoleon it began to decline, but since its closer connexion with the interior of the country by the Gotha Canal (opened 1832) and Western Railway it has rapidly advanced both in population and trade. It is expected that the great line now in course of construction through the mining districts will very greatly increase the importance of Gothenburg. Since the demolition of its fortifications in 1807, it has been defended only by the two redoubts of Billingen and Rya Rabbe. Gothenburg was the birthplace of the poet Bengt Lidner, and of two of Sweden’s greatest sculptors, Fogelberg and Molin. After the French Revolution Gothenburg was for a time the residence of the Bourbon family.
See Octavia Carlén, Göteborg: Beskrifηiηg öfter staden och dess närmaste omgifningar (Stockholm, 18G9), and the works therein cited; also J. Hellstenius, Xagre blad ur Göteborgs historia Ob. 1870); Λxel⅛on and Pabst, Sveriges. industrielles etablissementer Ob. 1870, et seq.)∙, W. Malm, Beskrifnιng öfter segelleden fran Stockholms kanalvagar till Göteborg Ob. 1873). Bidrag till kannedom om Göteborgs och Bohusldns fornminnen och historia, published by the Economic Society of the iän (Gothenb. and Stockh., 1874 el seq.), and Göteborgs Kalendar, a yearly publication.
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