MorfO-studies

Delimitation and study of urban-morphological areas 

We merge mapping and typologising of various kinds of urban fabric found in Swedish cities and analyzing them. The fundament is a delimitation of urban-morphological areas in Sweden’s towns and cities. 

Towns and cities may be built in various ways. Thus, various places may look different and various parts of the same city may also differ from each other. Hötorgscity in central Stockholm, for example, does neither look like its neighbouring areas reachable just one stop away with the metro, nor like the neighbourhoods at the ends of the metro lines. The various areas in a city are sometimes separated by barriers (such as rivers and railways), sometimes the borders are less pronounced. 

May such urban morphological be of importance for your subject of study? Then the MorfO-subdivision may be of interest to you. Sweden’s urban localities (>2 000 inhabitants) have been subdivided into areas based on various urban-morphological characteristics and presence of barriers. In total 8 540 areas have been subdivided in this way. It is free to use the subdivision; Shape-files and descriptions of the construction and attribute data can be downloaded below. The work to produce it has been supported by Axel och Margaret Ax:son Johnsons stiftelse för allmännyttiga ändamål. The map illustrates the variations in urban morphology and how these variations are reflected in the MorfO-subdivision, using Mariestad as an example.