National civil registration and vital statistics in Sweden and the other Nordic countries

In this contribution, we give an overview of the system of vital statistics in Sweden and its neighboring Nordic countries. These countries have a long history of meticulous recording of the vital events of its resident populations. Statistics on births, deaths, migration and civil status changes are collected locally and summarized by the Statistical Central Bureaus of the five Nordic countries. The paper focuses on the practice in Sweden, both historically and at present, and comments on some of the rather minor differences in population-registration systems that exist between Sweden and Denmark, Finland, Iceland and Norway.