The Port of Gavle lies on an inlet of the Gulf of Bothnia in east central Sweden 174 kilometers north-northwest of Stockholm. Port of Gavle is the capital of Gavleborg County and the main export center for the city of Norrland and the Bergslagen region. It is just northwest of Jarvsta, where there is a Viking burial ground, and the seaport resort of Furuvik. In 2005, over 92 thousand people called the Port of Gavle home.

In the 15th Century, the Port of Gavle started exporting copper and iron from the Bergslagen region, and it was an important shipping center and merchant town during the 16th Century. While few of the shipping companies or shipyards remain today, the Port of Gavle is still an important port, with over a thousand ships calling at port each year.

For many ages, the Port of Gavle was little more than a village with turf and shingled wooden buildings and boat-houses lining the banks of the inlet where exports were sent off to foreign lands. The Port of Gavle was given permission to import and export goods for the first time in 1491. In the 1700s, the town was built around the town hall, a church, the regional palace. In 1783, about 40 ships called at the Port of Gavle.

Over the past three centuries, the Port of Gavle has been threatened by fire many times. After a devastating fire in 1776, the town rebuilt with rectangular city blocks and straight streets, and more stone and brick houses were built. The biggest fire was in 1869 when about 8 thousand of the city’s 10 thousand residents lost their homes in the north area of town, and as many as 350 farms were ruined. The buildings in the south of the Port of Gavle were saved. Today, an area of the old town, Gamla Gefle, has been preserved, and the city has many esplanades and green areas with wide avenues to stop the spread of future fires.

In 1859, around a hundred vessels called at the Port of Gavle. The Fredriksskans Harbor was inaugurated in 1905.

In the middle of the 20th Century, the Port of Gavle undertook a major redevelopment project. The city was merged with nearby municipalities in the early 1970s. In 1976, the Port of Gavle’s Granudden Forest Products Terminal was inaugurated. In 2006, the Port of Gavle Container Terminal and the Flight Fuel Terminal opened, and a new primary road to the port became operational. In 2007, the Port of Gavle’s new harbor office opened for business, and in 2008, the Combi-Terminal was completed.

In 1966, the legend of the Gavle Goat was born in the Port of Gavle. Local citizen Stig Gavlen had the idea of creating a huge traditional Christmas goat out of straw. He put the 13-meter-tall goat on Castle Square, and it was set to fire at midnight on New Year’s Eve. The tradition continues, but for a few wrinkles. It is illegal to burn the goat, but that hasn’t stopped the tradition. In 2006, the goat was covered with a flame-resistant coating, and it stood in the town center for the entire winter. The Port of Gavle Goat is the stuff of myth. It has been featured in movies, on Sweden’s “Most Wanted” television show seeking the infamous arsonists, and on the front page of USA Today.

The Port of Gavle (Swedish) is an important logistics center for traffic by sea, rail, and road. Their goal is to promote regional growth and development while also maintaining tight security and protecting the local environment.

The Port of Gavle’s Bulk Terminal has some small terminals are available for short-term storage. The East Quay is 570 meters long with depths from 8.7 to 8.8 meters and handles cargoes like scrap, bar-steel, sawn wood, ferro-alloys, and clays. The Southwest Quay handles clay for the paper industry, rubber clippings, and stainless scrap at a 285-meter quay with alongside depth of 7.3 meters. The South Quay is 180 meters long with alongside depth of 7.7 meters. The South Quay handles bulk cargoes like fuel chips, timber, and pellets, and it has terminal buildings for short-term storage. The ore-loading quay at the Port of Gavle’s Bulk Terminal is 120 meters long with alongside depth of 8.8 meters. The ore-loading quay has an automatic loading facility that handles Boliden Mineral’s lead and zinc ore concentrates.

The Port of Gavle’s Oil and Chemical Terminal contains two quays that handle petrol, diesel, ethanol, fuel oil, and aviation kerosene, among other cargoes. Berth 1 is 185 meters long with alongside depth of 8.8 meters, and it specializes in oil and chemicals. Berth 21, the oil quay, can accommodate ships to 200 meters long at depths of 10.1 meters. The Oil Terminal serves about 120 tankers each year. The Port of Gavle owns and maintains the 10-kilometers of pipeline network that connects the oil companies’ depots with the quay. The Port of Gavle’s Oil Terminal has storage capacity in 140 cisterns for about 950 cubic meters of cargo, and the terminal has six rock cavities that can store a total of about 750 thousand cubic meters. The Oil and Chemical Terminal at the Port of Gavle handles about 1.5 million tons of petroleum per year.

The Port of Gavle’s Container Terminal opened in 2006 with two berths of 320 meters with alongside depth of 10 meters. The Container Terminal at the Port of Gavle has capacity to handle 175 thousand TEUs of containerized cargo each year. The Port of Gavle is the third biggest container port in Sweden.

The new Combi-Terminal at the Port of Gavle is a 600-meter by 50-meter area for loading and unloading trailers and containers. The Combi-Terminal also has a newly-renovated quay with a roll-on/roll-off ramp and a large open area for combi- and roll-on/roll-off traffic.

The City of Gavle is a moderately-sized town with a long history and a rich cultural tradition. The climate in Gavle is similar to the rest of central Sweden, with winter temperatures averaging at -5°C (23°F) and summer temperatures climbing to 17°C (63°F).

Residents and visitors to the Port of Gavle enjoy fishing in the middle of town, where fishing is free between the Stromdalens power plant and the Islandsbron bridge. Licenses are required.

The Port of Gavle is home to the Swedish Railway Museum with a collection of model trains, rolling stock, dioramas, and photographs that tell the story of railroading’s history in Sweden, much of it in English. The museum also houses a café and a bookstore.

The Gavlebocken, the Port of Gavle’s straw goat, is its most famous attraction. While it has often been victim to arsonists on New Year’s Eve, the city has fire-proofed the beloved goat, so it survives the winters.