Malmö Audioguides

When the Kockums shipyard closed in 1986, it felt like Malmö might simply stop. For years it had been a worker's city -- unglamorous, utilitarian, built around the enormous crane that still dominates the western harbor skyline. Then the Öresund Bridge opened in 2000 and something shifted. Suddenly Malmö was fifteen minutes from Copenhagen, and people arrived in numbers the city had never seen. The crane now stands next to the Turning Torso, a 190-meter residential skyscraper completed in 2005 that twists as it rises and has become the new skyline landmark.

The city that emerged from this transformation is one of Sweden's most diverse, with nearly half its population carrying foreign backgrounds and 187 nationalities represented.

The neighborhoods of Rosengård and Möllevångstorget have long been home to large Middle Eastern and North African communities, and the food around Möllan square reflects that -- döner, falafel, and Lebanese grocers alongside Swedish konditori. Ingmar Bergman ran the municipal theater here in the 1950s, launching Max von Sydow's career. Eurovision came three times, the only non-capital city in the world to host it more than once.