On 26 January 1647 an order of precedence for the towns of Sweden and Finland was published. A handwritten copy of it is preserved in the archive of the Livonian Governor, so despite the fact that it is outside of the GNW period it could perhaps merit some attention. The beginning of list looks like this:

 

1. Stockholm

2. Uppsala

3. Norrköping

4. Göteborg

5. Kalmar

6. Åbo

7. Vyborg

8. Nyköping

9. Västervik

10. Gävle

11. Visby

12. Falun

13. Västerås

14. Arboga

15. Örebro

16. Jönköping

17. Köping

18. Helsingfors

19. Hudiksvall

20. Vasa

21. Lidköping

22. Mariestad

23. Karlstad

24. Linköping

25. Strängnäs

 

The list contains 72 towns. It should be remembered that this was before the conquest of the southern provinces in 1658 (Malmö, Kristianstad etc.) and the subsequent establishment of Karlshamn and in particular Karlskrona in Blekinge. The highest ranked towns were generally those who had been given the right to trade with foreign countries (so called stapelstäder). The regulation stated that if new such towns were acquired or established they would be placed after Falun, while others would be placed after no 72 and ranked according to their age.