you can fish from , and swim in , the waters surrounding the city center . Cold and sometimes bleak during its long , dark winters , Stockholm comes alive during the summer , when the Scandinavian sun barely sets . As temperatures rise the city 's cafe culture blossoms , only for Stockholm to become a ghost town during July , when the locals make the most of their generous holiday entitlement and slip off to holiday cottages in the archipelago . But beyond its historic heart Stockholm is a progressive , evolving city . Its financial fortunes grew with the mid '90s IT boom and shrank when the dotcom bubble burst , but it remains a hotbed of technology and communications companies . Watch ABBA 's Bjorn Ulvaeus take CNN on a tour of Stockholm '' Around 20 percent of the residents of greater Stockholm are of foreign descent , giving a sense of cultural diversity -- not to mention some welcome variety to the city 's thriving restaurant scene . Despite Sweden 's largely anti-EU stance , Stockholm is cosmopolitan and outward looking , with a keen eye for the latest international trends . Its shops are
-LRB- CNN -RRB- -- Although most Swedes would be too modest to say so themselves , Stockholm can stake a decent claim to being the capital of Scandinavia . Built on 14 islands , Stockholm seems to float on water . Built on 14 islands where Lake Mälaren meets the Baltic Sea , Stockholm is a soft-hued vision of light and water , the bewitching start to an archipelago of some 24,000 islands and islets . Sweden 's neutrality during World War II means Stockholm was spared the bombing inflicted on most European capitals ; the result is the unspoiled old town of Gamla Stan , with its winding , cobbled streets . Despite a post-war building blitz that saw the construction of some particularly uninspiring modernist architecture , it is a city where gray concrete facades are largely eschewed in favor of a smorgasbord of pastel colors , rusty reds and glowing ochres . For a capital city it 's unusually green -- not just leafy and dotted with verdant parks , but environmentally sound . Stockholm proper has a population of just 800,000 , avoiding the congestion and pollution that plague larger cities -- so much so that