Gothenburg is the gubernatorial seat of Västra Götaland County in Sweden. It is the second-largest city in Sweden, after the capital Stockholm, and the fifth-largest in the Nordic countries. It is situated by the Kattegat on the west coast of Sweden, with a population of approximately 600,000 in the city proper and about 1.1 million inhabitants in the metropolitan area. King Gustavus Adolphus founded Gothenburg by royal charter in 1621 as a heavily fortified, primarily Dutch, trading colony.