Riddarfjärden
Riddarfjärden (, "The Knight Firth") is the easternmost bay of Lake Mälaren in central Stockholm. Stockholm was founded in 1252 on an island in the stream where Lake Mälaren (from the west) drains into the Baltic Sea (to the east); today the island is called Stadsholmen and constitutes Stockholm's Old Town.
Stockholm during the Swedish Empire
In this context, Stockholm was of central importance. In a letter in 1636, Chancellor Axel Oxenstierna (1583–1654), the main architect behind the Swedish central government, wrote that evolving the Swedish capital was a prerequisite for the nation's "power and strength" ("rijksens machtt och styrke"); that all efforts should be made to ensure "Stockholm arose and that it became populated" ("Stockholm kommer opp och den bliffver populerat"); and that this would "certainly bring all the other cities on their feet" ("Sedan skall väll Stockholm bringa dee andre på behnen"). Increased state intervention on city level was not unique to Sweden at this time, but it was probably more prominent in the case of Stockholm than anywhere else in Europe.
The Swedish pretensions and the quick growth at this time can be illustrated by two quotes separated in time by half a century; one from a temporary visitor, and the other from a prominent Swedish propagandist:
...because the buildings all have flattened roofs, covered with birch-bark and verdant turfs in the same manner as the peasant's cottages in Russia. The roofs serve as pasturage, and on some goats are kept grazing, whom occasionally jumps over the street from one building to another and then back again.