Many towns and villages in the inland north of Sweden were settled by independent farmers and foresters, with industry and company towns being relatively rare. In Canada and Australia industry and company towns were more common, and there is some evidence that those towns have found it more difficult to attract and retain population than what we term here as 'settler towns'. Development of alternative economic activities such as tourism has been difficult. In Sweden, however, there is no clear distinction between the recent demographic performance of industry and settler villages, and local economic activity has been relatively unimportant as most villages are well connected to regional labour markets.