Saltsjöbaden

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Saltsjöbaden
Grand Hotel Saltsjöbaden
Saltsjöbaden is located in Sweden
Saltsjöbaden
Coordinates: 59°17′10″N 18°17′14″E / 59.28611°N 18.28722°E / 59.28611; 18.28722Coordinates: 59°17′10″N 18°17′14″E / 59.28611°N 18.28722°E / 59.28611; 18.28722
Country Sweden
Province Södermanland
County Stockholm County
Municipality Nacka Municipality
Area [1]
 - Total 5.39 km2 (2.1 sq mi)
Population (2005-12-31)[1]
 - Total 8,937
 - Density 1,657/km2 (4,291.6/sq mi)
Time zone CET (UTC+1)
 - Summer (DST) CEST (UTC+2)

Saltsjöbaden is a locality situated in Nacka Municipality, Stockholm County, Sweden with 8,937 inhabitants in 2005.[1] It is located on the coast of the Baltic Sea.

[edit] History

Saltsjöbaden (literally "the Salt Sea baths") was developed as a resort by Knut Agathon Wallenberg, a member of the wealthy and influential Wallenberg family, from farmland which he bought in 1891 through a newly created railway company.

Saltsjöbaden was an independent municipality 1909–1970. In 1971 it was re-integrated into Nacka Municipality.

The local railway (Saltsjöbanan), built by Wallenberg and completed in 1893, connected Saltsjöbaden with Stockholm, with its terminus at Slussen. The railway was taken over by Storstockholms Lokaltrafik in the late 1960s and integrated in the Stockholm public transport system.

Two luxurious hotels (1893) and a sanatorium were built, designed by architect Erik Josephson. The parish church, Uppenbarelsekyrkan (the "Church of the Epiphany"), was built 1910–1913 and designed by Ferdinand Boberg with decoration by Olle Hjortzberg and Carl Milles, among others. The remainder of the land bought by the railway company was subdivided into plots; with the railway facilitating communications with the city, Saltsjöbaden soon became a popular suburb for the upper and upper middle classes who purchased the plots and developed it with spacious private houses.

When the reformer of late imperial China, Kang Youwei, visited Sweden after the failure of the Hundred Days' Reform, he bought an islet of Saltsjöbaden in 1904 and stayed there until he left Sweden in 1907. The islet is sometimes referred to in Chinese as Kang Youwei Island.[2][3]

The Stockholm Observatory was 1931-2001 located in Saltsjöbaden (see Saltsjöbaden Observatory). The asteroid 36614 Saltis, discovered there in 2000, was named after a common nickname of the place.

The larger of the two hotels, Grand Hotel Saltsjöbaden, was the location of the negotiations between the Swedish Employers Association (now the Confederation of Swedish Enterprise) and the Swedish Trade Union Confederation, which led to the Saltsjöbaden agreement of 1938. The agreement materialized into the social democratic class compromise, or form of industrial relations in Sweden, the so-called “Saltsjöbaden spirit”, marked by willingness to co-operate and a cross-class, collective sense of responsibility for developments in the national labour market and in the Swedish economy generally.[4]

In the world of chess, Saltsjöbaden is famous for the 1948 Interzonal tournament won by David Bronstein of the USSR.[5]

Grand Hotel Saltsjöbaden hosted the annual meeting of the Bilderberg Group in 1962, 1973 and 1984.

The station house at Saltsjöbaden

[edit] References