Arvika is a locality

Urban areas in Sweden

Urban area is a common English translation of the Swedish term tätort. The official term in English, used by Statistics Sweden, is, however, locality. There are 1,940 localities in Sweden . They could be compared with census-designated places in the United States.A tätort in Sweden has a minimum of...

 and the seat of Arvika Municipality

Arvika Municipality

Arvika Municipality is a municipality in Värmland County in west central Sweden. Its seat is located in the city of Arvika....

, Värmland County

Värmland County

Värmland County is a county or län in west central Sweden. It borders the Swedish counties of Dalarna, Örebro and Västra Götaland, as well as the Norwegian counties of Østfold, Akershus and Hedmark to the west.- Province :...

, Sweden

Sweden

Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....

 with 14,184 inhabitants in 2005.

Geography

The town of Arvika is situated at Kyrkviken, a bay of Glafsfjorden, Sweden's only inland fjord

Fjord

Geologically, a fjord is a long, narrow inlet with steep sides or cliffs, created in a valley carved by glacial activity.-Formation:A fjord is formed when a glacier cuts a U-shaped valley by abrasion of the surrounding bedrock. Glacial melting is accompanied by rebound of Earth's crust as the ice...

, a remnant of the time following the last ice age

Ice age

An ice age or, more precisely, glacial age, is a generic geological period of long-term reduction in the temperature of the Earth's surface and atmosphere, resulting in the presence or expansion of continental ice sheets, polar ice sheets and alpine glaciers...

 (once a fjord of the Ancylus Lake

Ancylus Lake

Ancylus lake is a name given by geologists to the body of fresh water that replaced the Yoldia Sea after the latter had been severed from its saline intake across central Sweden by the isostatic rise of south Scandinavian landforms. The dates are approximately 9500-8000 BP calibrated, during the...

).

The area is hilly with the tallest hill Storkasberget close to the town centre.

Arvika and its surroundings has excellent water infrastructure. In fact, Arvika has the innermost harbour in the whole of Sweden. Through a system of canal

Canal

Canals are man-made channels for water. There are two types of canal:#Waterways: navigable transportation canals used for carrying ships and boats shipping goods and conveying people, further subdivided into two kinds:...

s lake Vänern

Vänern

Vänern is the largest lake in Sweden, the largest lake in the EU 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 southwest of the country.- History :...

 can be reached, and from there the Göta Canal

Göta Canal

The Göta Canal is a Swedish canal constructed in the early 19th century. It formed the backbone of a waterway stretching some 382 miles , linking a number of lakes and rivers to provide a route from Gothenburg on the west coast to Söderköping on the Baltic Sea via the river Göta älv and the...

 allowes further passage to Gothenburg

Gothenburg

Gothenburg is the second-largest city in Sweden and the fifth-largest in the Nordic countries. Situated on the west coast of Sweden, the city proper has a population of 519,399, with 549,839 in the urban area and total of 937,015 inhabitants in the metropolitan area...

 and Sweden's west coast.

History

Ten kilometers west of the city, in Bergs Klätt, there are remnants of a younger Stone Age

Stone Age

The Stone Age is a broad prehistoric period, lasting about 2.5 million years , during which humans and their predecessor species in the genus Homo, as well as the earlier partly contemporary genera Australopithecus and Paranthropus, widely used exclusively stone as their hard material in the...

 and Nordic Bronze Age

Nordic Bronze Age

The Nordic Bronze Age is the name given by Oscar Montelius to a period and a Bronze Age culture in Scandinavian pre-history, c. 1700-500 BC, with sites that reached as far east as Estonia. Succeeding the Late Neolithic culture, its ethnic and linguistic affinities are unknown in the absence of...

 settlements in the form of graves.

The town was a village

Village

A village is a clustered human settlement or community, larger than a hamlet with the population ranging from a few hundred to a few thousand , Though often located in rural areas, the term urban village is also applied to certain urban neighbourhoods, such as the West Village in Manhattan, New...

 until 1811 when it was given town privileges by royal charter under the name Oscarsstad in order to improve the economy of the area. This attempt was unsuccessful, and the town privileges were repealed in 1821 and the town was instead given the status of köping

Köping

This article deals with the Swedish denomination for a market town. For the city, see Köping, Sweden. For the municipality, see Köping Municipality....

 (township) and renamed Arvika. The town privileges were reinstated at the founding centennial in 1911, and the name Arvika remained. The city status is now obsolete, but Arvika is since 1971 the seat of the larger Arvika municipality.

The churches Mikaelskyrkan, is from 1647 and the church in the centre, Trefaldighetskyrkan, is from the same year as the town, 1911.

Industry

Arvika has several heavy industrial production facilities which employ the majority of the population, among these Thermia

Thermia

Thermia is a genus of air-breathing land snails, terrestrial pulmonate gastropod mollusks in the family Endodontidae.- Species :Species in the genus Thermia include:* Thermia virescens * Thermia subincarnata...

, Volvo Construction Equipment

Volvo Construction Equipment

Volvo Construction Equipment is a subsidiary and business area of AB Volvo. Volvo Construction Equipment develops, manufactures and markets equipment for the construction and related industries.- Overview :...

 (Wheel loaders

Loader (equipment)

A loader is a heavy equipment machine often used in construction, primarily used to load material into or onto another type of machinery .-Heavy equipment front loaders:A loader A loader is a heavy equipment machine often used in construction, primarily used to load material (such as asphalt,...

), Arvika Gjuteri (nodular and grey iron foundry) and Coffee Queen, a coffemachine factory.

Culture

Arvika is known for the turn of the century (around 1900) artist commune Rackstad just outside the city. Here, several famous Swedish artists lived and worked, the most well-known probably being Christian Eriksson and Gustaf Fjæstad

Gustaf Fjæstad

Gustaf Fjaestad ) was a Swedish painter, a member of the Rackstad colony of artists in Värmland, Sweden.He collaborated with Carl Larsson on the murals now at the Stockholm National Museum. His work is found in many national and international collections -References:...

 and his wife Maja Fjæstad. Other talents that lived in Rackstad include Björn Ahlgrensson and Fritz Lindström

Fritz Lindström

Fritz Lindström, born July 5, 1874 in Stockholm, Sweden, dead January 4, 1962 in Arvika, was a Swedish artist, landscape painter and portrait painter.On May 17, 1903 he moved to Arvika.He was a member of the artist group Rackengruppen.-External link:...

.

In recent times, the Arvika Festival

Arvika Festival

Arvika Festival is an annual music festival held in Arvika, Sweden. It takes place during three days in the middle of July, from Thursday to Saturday, with camping available from the beginning of the week. The non-profit association "Galaxen" arranges the festival.Since the nineties, the...

 (since 1992) is the biggest annual event in the area, with several international bands visiting the town during three days in July every summer. In recent years such bands as Einstürzende Neubauten

Einstürzende Neubauten

Einstürzende Neubauten is a German post-industrial band, originally from West Berlin, formed in 1980. The group currently comprises Blixa Bargeld , Alexander Hacke , N.U...

, Hot Chip

Hot Chip

Hot Chip are an English electronic indie band. They have released four studio albums—Coming on Strong, The Warning, Made in the Dark and One Life Stand.-Formation:...

, Robyn

Robyn

Robin Miriam Carlsson , better known by her stage name Robyn, is a Swedish recording artist, singer, and songwriter. Robyn became known in the late nineties for her worldwide dance-pop hit "Do You Know " from her debut album Robyn Is Here . She co-wrote the song "Du gör mig hel igen" for...

, The Knife

The Knife

The Knife are a Swedish electronic music duo from Gothenburg, formed in 1999. The group consists of siblings Karin Dreijer Andersson and Olof Dreijer, who together also run their own record company, Rabid Records. They first received international attention after their song "Heartbeats", covered by...

, Ministry

Ministry (band)

Ministry is an American industrial metal band founded by lead singer Al Jourgensen in 1981. Originally a synthpop outfit, Ministry changed its style to industrial metal in the late 1980s. Ministry found mainstream success in the early 1990s with its most successful album Psalm 69: The Way to...

, New Order

New Order

New Order are an English rock band formed in 1980 by Bernard Sumner , Peter Hook and Stephen Morris...

, Kraftwerk

Kraftwerk

Kraftwerk is an influential electronic music band from Düsseldorf, Germany. The group was formed by Ralf Hütter and Florian Schneider in 1970, and was fronted by them until Schneider's departure in 2008...

 and Franz Ferdinand

Franz Ferdinand (band)

Franz Ferdinand are a Scottish post-punk revival band formed in Glasgow in 2002. The band is composed of Alex Kapranos , Bob Hardy , Nick McCarthy , and Paul Thomson .The band first experienced chart success when their second single, "Take Me Out", reached #3 in...

 have performed here. The 2009 festival was headlined by Depeche Mode

Depeche Mode

Depeche Mode are an English electronic music band formed in 1980 in Basildon, Essex. The group's original line-up consisted of Dave Gahan , Martin Gore , Andy Fletcher and Vince Clarke...

, Nine Inch Nails

Nine Inch Nails

Nine Inch Nails is an American industrial rock project, founded in 1988 by Trent Reznor in Cleveland, Ohio. As its main producer, singer, songwriter, and instrumentalist, Reznor is the only official member of Nine Inch Nails and remains solely responsible for its direction...

, Röyksopp

Röyksopp

Röyksopp is a Norwegian electronic music duo from Tromsø, formed in 1998. Since their inception, the band's line-up has included Svein Berge and Torbjørn Brundtland....

 and Korn

Korn

Korn is an American nu metal band from Bakersfield, California, formed in 1993. The current band line up includes four members: Jonathan Davis, James "Munky" Shaffer, Reginald "Fieldy" Arvizu, and Ray Luzier. The band was formed as an expansion of L.A.P.D.The band released their first demo album,...

 and was the biggest edition of the festival ever.

One of the six university colleges of music in Sweden, Ingesund College of Music

Ingesund College of Music

Ingesund College of Music is located in Arvika in the Swedish province of Värmland. It is the music department of Karlstad University....

, a department of Karlstad University

Karlstad University

Karlstad University is a state university in Karlstad, Sweden. The university, being a former university college was granted university status in 1999 by the Government of Sweden. Originally it was a branch of the University of Gothenburg...

, is situated in Arvika.

Twin towns — Sister cities

Arvika has three twin cities:

	Kongsvinger Kongsvinger is a town and is a municipality in Hedmark county, Norway. It is part of the traditional region of Glåmdal. The administrative centre of the municipality is the town of Kongsvinger.... , Norway Norway Norway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic unitary constitutional monarchy whose territory comprises the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Jan Mayen, and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard and Bouvet Island. Norway has a total area of and a population of about 4.9 million...
	Skive Skive Skive has the following meanings:* To skive is British slang for the practice of avoiding responsibilities because you want to do something more fun or just do not want to do what you should be doing... , Denmark Denmark Denmark is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe. The countries of Denmark and Greenland, as well as the Faroe Islands, constitute the Kingdom of Denmark . It is the southernmost of the Nordic countries, southwest of Sweden and south of Norway, and bordered to the south by Germany. Denmark...
	Ylöjärvi Ylöjärvi Ylöjärvi is a town and a municipality in Western Finland located west of Tampere.The town has a population of and covers an area of of which is water. The population density is . The population has increased rapidly in recent years, in 1990 it was slightly over 18,000.Ylöjärvi was founded as... , Finland Finland Finland , officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country situated in the Fennoscandian region of Northern Europe. It is bordered by Sweden in the west, Norway in the north and Russia in the east, while Estonia lies to its south across the Gulf of Finland.Around 5.4 million people reside...