Swedish for "The National Encyclopaedia".

Nationalencyklopedin is the most comprehensive encyclopaedia in Swedish. It covers 172,000 subjects on 12,700 pages in 20 volumes. It was created between 1989 and 1996 by the Bra Böcker publishing house. More than 3,000 people have written text for it. Many of the writers are among the best Swedes in their particular field.

In 1985, the Riksdag authorised the creation of a new Swedish language encyclopaedia. A few months later, an agreement with Bra Böckers Förlag was formed. The agreement covered most issues regarding the contents and look of the new encyclopaedia. In 1986, the work of creating the new encyclopaedia was begun.

In December 1989, the first of the 20 volumes was issued. At that time, about 54,000 customers had pre-ordered the first volume. From 1990 and onwards, an average of three volumes were issued every year until August 1996 when the last volume was issued. The articles in NE were written in alphabetical order, but the articles the encyclopaedia would cover were decided by 300 experts before the writing was begun.

The size of the articles and how much space is allocated to different subjects is dependant of how relevant they might be to a Swede. The article on Norway, for example, is much bigger than the article on Bhutan.

The articles in NE assume that the reader has the knowledge of a student in one of the theoretical programmes at the Swedish gymnasium however, the language should be easy to understand for everyone.

There's more to Nationalencyklopedin than the encyclopaedia. Nationalencyklopedin also makes a three volume dictionary and a two volume atlas. In 2000, a three volume supplement was issued, covering 9,000 new subjects and updating 13,000 old ones. Since 1996, a year-book is issued each year, documenting and analysing the events of the preceding year.

Nationalencyklopedin is also available in CD-ROM and DVD versions. Since 2000, NE is also available on the Internet at http://www.ne.se. Subscribers get full access to both the encyclopaedia, the dictionary, the atlas and the year-books, all regularly updated. The CD-ROM, DVD, and Internet versions of NE also contain movies, pictures, and interactive features not in the printed version.

In 1994, Bra Böckers Förlag was taken over by a bigger corporation and subsequently chopped up into smaller parts. Therefore, Nationalencyklopedin has been issued by NE Nationalencyklopedin AB since 2000.

Sources:
Nationalencyklopedin
http://www.ne.se