Its a surprise to me too, but that COULD just be (IMO&AIUI) because in Sweden much of the population is concentrated in the south, so the population gets thought of as much smaller than what it actually is
In population? Realy? That certainly surprises me. I always see Seweden as one of the smaller countries of Europe. Actualy I wanted to make a whole point that Sweden would be unable to compete with countries like Spain, France and England because it is significantly smaller than those countries. If Sweden isn't, that argument isn't correct.
Sweden becoming a great colonizer is not as ASB as you think. Sweden and England was roughly the same size in 1530
Then i was wrong. But if we look at this in another way. In 1530 neither England or Sweden was a major power. Both were seen as backwaters.Not to my knowledge according to thye Swedish wikipedia Sweden had 900.000 people in 1570, while England alone had 3,2 million people in 1560 (English wikipedia). I know wikipedia isn't the best source in the world, but nothing I have seen indicate that it's wrong.
But when that's said if colonization dependent on the colonizers population size, we would have this discussion in French. Sweden had the surplus population necessary to colonize the Cape, and more important it had a population willing to emigrate.
Yeah, but England had the advantage of a larger population, better sea access to the atlantic and no need for a large army to defend its borders, so England has a lot of advantages compared to Sweden. You should compare Sweden to the Netherlands and even than the Netherlands had big advantages to Sweden. Not only does it have better access to the Atlantic (which is a rather important advantage). I think that the Netherlands had several social and economic. The Netherlands (at least the republic) had a large urban population, which was relatively highly educated, a lot of economic freedom, a large entrepreneurial middle class, while not being dominated by an all powerful nobility. For a Swedish (and Danish and any other smallish European country) colonial empire, it needs those advantages to compete with the big boys in colonial Europe, Spain, France and England.Then i was wrong. But if we look at this in another way. In 1530 neither England or Sweden was a major power. Both were seen as backwaters.
I like your pirates. If Carl/Charles gives them a big shipment of Swedish high-quality iron they'd make effective allies.Carl XII doesn't even need the cutie involved. There was a group of pirates who offered him/Sweden overlordship of Madagascar OTL. Carl was interested but there was someone called Petya making problems in Swedish territory, so he couldn't give it the attention that he WANTED to, apparently.