1878 in Sweden

Incumbents

• Monarch – Oscar II
• Prime Minister – Louis Gerhard De Geer

Events

• 21 July - The Vega Expedition starts
• August – Mission Covenant Church of Sweden is founded
• 22 November - The Metric system is introduced in Sweden
• 6 December - The Phonograph is introduced in Sweden
• - First issue of Bohusläningen
• - The Stockholm University is founded.
• - The Eldkvarn fire.
• - The Svenska Federationen is founded to stop the regulation of prostitutes. It also questioned the sexual double standards that justified it, which also inspired the public sexual morality debate referred to as Sedlighetsdebatten.
• - The Swedish colony of Saint Barthélemy is bought by the French.

Births

• 4 January – Rosa Grünberg, actress and singer
• 25 January – Ernst Alexanderson, television pioneer
• 17 February – Celina Runeborg, painter
• 27 May – Anna Cervin, artist
• 25 June – Erik Viktor Tryggelin, painter
• 23 September – Carl Kylberg, modernist painter

Deaths

• 8 February – Elias Magnus Fries, mycologist and botanist
• 8 October - Caroline Ridderstolpe, composer
• 30 November – Dorothea Dunckel, playwright