Söderslätt (Map code: 2D SV)
Lime-rich till clay soil from lime-stone bedrock, and the mildest climate in Sweden makes the plain in southwestern Skåne the best agricultural area in the country. Cultivation has a 6000 year long history. Since the modernisation of agriculture from late 18th century the whole area is used as arable land, however stepwise reduced by rapid urbanisation in the Öresund region. Söderslätt is famous by the fact that here the radical land reform, dissolution of villages and open-field systems into consolidated single farms with crop rotation was pioneered by the owner of the big estate Svaneholm, Rutger Maclean, in the 1780s. The rectangular ‘Maclean pattern’ of farmland still characterizes the landscape. The plain gives rich harvests of wheat, barley, sugar beets, fodder plants incl. corn and oleiferous plants. Pigs and poultry are bred in industrial scale.

In her geography book on Sweden, Selma Lagerlöf let little Nils Holgersson start his flight on the back of a wild goose across the country from Västra Vemmenhög.

Swedish Gazetteer