What does torpare mean?

In Swedish records, torpare means crofter: a man who farmed a small holding on someone else's land and paid for it with days of work.

Swedish: torpare
In English: crofter
Also seen as: torp, torparen, torparhustru, dagsverkstorpare
Group: Occupations and social standing

A crofter breaks new ground with an iron bar to make a small field in the 1700s.

Definition

A torpare (crofter) farmed a small holding, a torp (croft), on land that belonged to someone else^1,3. Usually he did not pay rent in money. Instead he worked a set number of full days a year on the landowner's farm or estate; these days were called dagsverken^1,3. The word crofter is used in British English. In American English the closest term is "renter farmer"¹.

In the records

In the household examination record, the title stands before the name, where the occupation is written⁵. The book is arranged by village, farm and croft⁶.

What it meant

The crofter used his own tools and animals on the land he was allowed to farm⁴. Crofters grew in number from the late 1700s to the 1860s⁴. Sweden had the most crofts around 1860, about 100,000¹. From the 1870s there were fewer, mainly because of industrialization⁴. The system where the crofter paid with labor was forbidden in 1943^1,3.

Do not confuse with

A backstugusittare also lived on someone else's land, but did no days of work for a landowner⁴. A statare owned no land or animals and was a hired laborer, while the crofter had his own dwelling, cattle, fields and pasture². Some English texts compare crofters with American sharecroppers, but Högman advises against it¹. Today, torp in Swedish often means just a small cottage in the countryside¹.

backstugusittare – A poor cottager who lived in a small cabin on someone else's land, with no land to farm.
statare – A married farm laborer on a large estate, hired for a year and paid mostly in goods, called stat.
bonde – A farmer – a man who worked his own or rented farmland in the countryside.
Guide: How to Read Swedish Household Examination Records

Sources

Sources in English

Hans Högman, Land ownership in earlier times – hhogman.se
Hans Högman, Statare – hhogman.se

Sources in Swedish

These pages are in Swedish.

Landsarkivet i Uppsala (Riksarkivet), Hur hittar jag mitt torp i arkiven?, Gunilla Lundberg Ehnström, 2008 (in Swedish) – webbutik.riksarkivet.se
Länsstyrelsen Skåne (County Administrative Board of Skåne), De obesuttna (in Swedish) – lansstyrelsen.se
Umeå University (CEDAR), Kyrkböcker. 1800-talets kyrkoregister, Ulla Nilsdotter Jeub, 2019 (in Swedish) – umu.se
Riksarkivet, Kyrkoarkiv (in Swedish) – sok.riksarkivet.se

Facts checked against sources, November 2026.