Malmö

Malmö, the third largest town of Sweden, on the Sound, nearly opposite Copenhagen, 17 miles distant. Besides being a busy seaport, it has manufactures of cigars, sugar, beer, and woollens, and some shipbuilding. The exports (chiefly grain, flour, butter, eggs, cement, chalk, matches, live-stock, and timber) are carried away every year in about 3500 vessels of 750,000 tons burden, and the imports (coal, machinery, cotton, grain, textiles, coffee, &c.) brought by 3600 vessels of 720,000 tons. The only remaining part of the old fortifications is the castle in which the Earl of Bothwell (q.v.) was confined; it is now used as a prison. The town-house is a fine Renaissance building of 1546. Pop. (1874) 30,676; (1888) 46,283. Down to the 16th century Malmö was one of the busiest commercial towns in that part of the Baltic. In 1523 a treaty of peace between the Danes and Gustavus Vasa was signed here.