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Umeå

urban area in Umeå Municipality, Sweden

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 1, 2026
Entity authorityQ25579
Source-derived summary

Umeå (Swedish: [ˈʉ̌ːmɛɔ] , locally: [ˈʉ̌ːmɛ] ; Finnish and Meänkieli: Uumaja; Ume Sámi: Ubmeje) is a city in northeast Sweden. It is the seat of Umeå Municipality and the capital of Västerbotten County.

Situated on the Ume River, Umeå is the largest locality in Norrland and the thirteenth largest in Sweden, with a wider municipal population of 132,235 inhabitants in the beginning of 2023. When Umeå University was established in 1965, growth accelerated, and the amount of housing has doubled in 30 years from 1980 to 2010. As of 2018, Umeå was gaining around 1,000 inhabitants per year and the municipality plans for having 200,000 inhabitants by 2050. The projection of municipality size in 2050 has, however, been questioned as an overestimation in an independent study.

Umeå is a university town and centre of education, technical and medical research in northern Sweden. The two universities located in the city, Umeå University and one of the three main branches of SLU, host around 40,000 enrolled students, which corresponds to around 30% of the total population. CRISPR gene editing was developed by researchers, headed by Emmanuelle Charpentier at Umeå University, being awarded the 2020 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Umeå was the European Capital of Culture during 2014, along with Riga in Latvia.

Editorial summary

The public source identifies “Umeå” as urban area in Umeå Municipality, Sweden. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Umeå, urban and area.

Editorial reviewA dependable orientation record for establishing vocabulary, names and a first evidence trail. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—2023, 1965, 1980, 2010—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1622-01-01. Its value is orientation rather than verdict, with Umeå, urban and area providing the first useful test.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Umeå”, the useful work is to connect “urban area in Umeå Municipality, Sweden” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.

Evidence profile

Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 1, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q25579. VIAF identifies the subject as 141346720. Authority coordinates are 63.828, 20.271. 1 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2023, 1965, 1980 and 2010.

Critical limits

The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

Best used for
  • Subject orientation
  • Search vocabulary
  • Locating named sources
Verify next

The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Umeå”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Umeå primary sources, Umeå archive and Umeå research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Umeå”?
  2. Which cited source is closest to the event, object or claim?
  3. Which institution is responsible for the underlying evidence?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Umeå” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.