Retail trade areas represent a large share of the area in Sweden where retail trade is located, although they account for a very small overall share of Sweden’s land area – less than 0.1 percent. Stockholm, Skåne, and Halland are the only counties in which retail trade areas exceed 0.1 percent of the land area, with 0.2 percent, 0.1 percent and 0.1 percent respectively. However, retail trade areas exceed more than 0.5 percent of the total land area in twelve Swedish municipalities. Eight of these municipalities are located in the Stockholm area, three are located in Skåne and one is in Gothenburg.

In 47 out of Sweden’s 290 municipalities there were no retail trade areas at all. This corresponds to 16 percent of all municipalities in Sweden.

The three metropolitan counties – Stockholm, Västra Götaland, and Skåne – easily host most workplaces per retail trade area. Gotland and Jämtland counties host the smallest number of workplaces per retail trade area.

In total, 152 000 persons working with retail trade were employed in retail trade areas in Sweden in 2015 (99 percent of them were situated in a locality). More than half of them worked in one of the three metropolitan counties - Stockholm, Västra Götaland, or Skåne.

Nearly all retail trade areas are situated in localities

Retail trade areas in Sweden are generally situated in localities, which is where the bulk of the population lives. Retail trade areas comprise 1.1 percent of the total area of Sweden’s localities.

Retail trade areas – a way to measure the progress of retail trade

Statistics Sweden’s retail trade areas are geographical areas that consist of either at least five retail trade enterprises within a limited distance, or four retail trade enterprises that together have at least 100 employees. Retail trade areas can consist of areas with retail trade in central parts of a town and peripheral retail trade at shopping centres and other trading venues. The 2015 retail trade areas were produced in an automated process, which means that all retail trade areas have been delimited in a systematic and comparable way.

Statistics has been produced based on data on retail trade enterprises included in the retail trade areas and that can be used as a basis for analyses of the progress of retail trade in Sweden. The statistics can form the basis for physical planning and monitoring the progress of the geographical pattern of retail trade over time. One aspect enabled by retail trade areas regarding the progress of retail trade is the study of ongoing structural change over time, in which trade is concentrated to fewer, but larger, trade venues, and where some physical retail trade transitions to online trade.