AbstractA relief map of Sweden has been constructed by the Land Survey on the basis of an elevation data base. The relief developed in the Precambrian bedrock is analysed and interpreted with the aid of weathering remnants and outliers of cover rocks of various ages. The following conclusions can be drawn. The different bedrock units have characteristic fracture patterns which reflect old, mainly Precambrian tectonics. The fracture pattern is more or less well expressed in the topography due to differences in the denudational history. In the Early Cambrian most of the basement surface was denuded to an almost level plain with only few residual hills. Cambro-Silurian strata were deposited on this primary planation surface. In Mesozoic time the Palaeozoic cover was stripped from elevated areas in southwestern and northern Sweden, where weathering penetrated deep along old fracture zones creating an uneven weathering front. The resulting undulating hilly land is still a significant component in the topography of southern Sweden (now exhumed from Jurassic and Cretaceous covers) and within large parts of the Norrland Terrain. Other areas, for instance the fissure valley landscape in the Stockholm region, where the sub-Cambrian surface is close to the plateau surfaces between the shallow and narrow valleys, were exhumed much later. The weathered fractures of the Mesozoic etchsurface have been emphasized in the topography of southern Norrland, probably due to unstable tectonic conditions in the Tertiary and later times. As the South Småland Peneplain in southern Sweden large areas in northern Norrland were flattened in the Early Tertiary due to stable tectonic conditions in combination with alternating arid and humid climates prohibiting the evolution of deep saprolites. In other parts of the Norrland Terrain the Mesozoic etchsurface seems to have been preserved, though the causes for preservation is unclear.