Värmdö 59'20.0 N - 18'35.0 E

 

Road 222 links Stockholm with Värmdö. The main town, Gustavsberg, offers a full range of facilities and can be reached by car or bus in only half an hour. From here you can travel  by boat to many of the larger islands in the central archipelago.

Värmdö is the most extensive archipelago community and can boast more than 15.000 islands and skerries.

You can reach the outer islands on a delightful boat trip. Some of the best known islands are Svartsö, Möja, Sandhamn, Runmarö and Nämdö.

History When the inland ice retired, the land that is Värmdö today, was completely under water. It took another 3000 years, until 5000 BC before areas that today are 50 m above sea level, first appeared as skerries and islets. Ever since the stone age the area has been populated. Fiske, jakt samt jordbruk och boskapsskötsel gjorde bosättningen möjlig och fram till 1800-talets slut var dessa näringar grunden för skärgårdsbornas existens. It took 2000 years for the land to reach 30 m. It was now stone age and a widespread archipelago had appeared. It was mostly skerries and islets, except Ingarö, farthest to the east. Ingarö is the island where remains of old sites have been found at Återvall, Fågelvik and Brunn. The Återvall site was discovered in 1913, 50.000 pottery fragments, fragments of axes and chisels, several arrow heads etc. The oldest finds could be dated to 3000 BC and the youngest to 2500 BC. During the following period, the bronze age, 1800 - 500 BC, land elevated to 15 m higher than today, but still most of the future farming areas was under water and the prospects for a permanent population small, but there are some 20 graves from this period.  During the bronze age the climate in the Nordic region was warm and dry and it is believed that the population lived a nomadic life. During the following period, older iron age 500 BC - 500), the climate turned colder and damp. The population led a more permanent life with cattle indoors during the winters. This in turn required that supplies had been collected for the people and hay and leaves for the cattle. So farming became increasingly important. But hunting and fishing remained important and was probably determinig for the location of the sites. Only four burial grounds from the older iron age have been found; Sund, Hemmesta, Söderåva and Lämshaga.  A total of 60 burial grounds from the younger iron age have been found. The largest at Säby has more than 150 graves and is the largest in Stockholm archipelago. The large number of graves indicates a site with a long continuity. During the Viking age 800 - 1100, buildings were centered to N Värmdö and this is the area where land wsa used for farming in this prehistoric time. Estimates point to 200-300 people on the island at the beginning of the middle age. During the middle age a remarkable growth of the population took place. At the middle of the 16th century, more than 100 new farmsteads had been established. Most of them were stand alone farms and only a few villages with 2-5 farms had been formed. Värmdö appears for the first time in the documents in 1314.