ABSTRACT
The history of Stockholm as a town goes back to the last decades of the thirteenth century.1 The first town grew up on an island, later known as Stadsholmen, between Lake Mälaren and the Baltic. The oldest settlement was on the high triangular plateau of the island, and was surrounded by a simple wall. In the course of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries the island grew, partly as a result of land elevation and partly as rubbish silted up the water, and it was at this time that the radial street network that is so typical of the old city (Gamla stan) emerged. At an early stage there was also some building on the mainland to the north and south of Stadsholmen, in what are known as the malmar, the suburban areas of Norrmalm and Södermalm outside the city wall. During the fifteenth century a new town wall was begun but never finished; in the course of the sixteenth century it lost any importance it had previously had.2
