Handen is a part of Metropolitan Stockholm, and the seat of Haninge Municipality

Haninge Municipality

Haninge Municipality is a municipality in Stockholm County in east central Sweden. Its seat is located in Handen.Haninge Municipality was formed in 1971 when Västerhaninge and Österhaninge were united....

 (Haninge kommun) in Stockholm County

Stockholm County

Stockholm County is a county or län on the Baltic sea coast of Sweden. It borders Uppsala County and Södermanland County. It also borders Mälaren and the Baltic Sea. The city of Stockholm is the capital of Sweden. Stockholm County is divided by the historic provinces of Uppland and Södermanland...

 in eastern 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....

. It had 11,524 inhabitants in 2003. Geographically and statistically Handen is a part of Stockholm urban area

Stockholm urban area

The Stockholm urban area is the largest and most populous of the statistical localities or urban areas in Sweden. It has no administrative function of its own, but constitutes a continuous multimunicipal built-up area, which extends into 11 municipalities in Stockholm County. It contains the...

 (total population 1,200,000).

Handen has a station on the Stockholm commuter rail

Stockholm commuter rail

Stockholm Commuter Rail is the commuter rail system in Stockholm County, Sweden. The system is an important part of the public transport in Stockholm, and is controlled by Stockholm Transport; the trains are operated under contract by Stockholmståg...

 system and a large bus terminal

Bus station

A bus station is a structure where city or intercity buses stop to pick up and drop off passengers. It is larger than a bus stop, which is usually simply a place on the roadside, where buses can stop...

 serving great areas of Södertörn

Södertörn

Södertörn is a roughly triangular peninsula in eastern Södermanland, Sweden, which is bordered by:*Lake Mälaren and the inlet of Saltsjön to the north,*Himmerfjärden and Hallsfjärden to the west and...

.

Handen is where the municipality seat of Haninge is located. Haninge's major shopping centre, Haninge Centrum, and the joint campus of KTH

Royal Institute of Technology

The Royal Institute of Technology is a university in Stockholm, Sweden. KTH was founded in 1827 as Sweden's first polytechnic and is one of Scandinavia's largest institutions of higher education in technology. KTH accounts for one-third of Sweden’s technical research and engineering education...

 and Södertörns Högskola, are also located here.

The Övre Rudasjön lake is located just west of the commercial centre.