When Baltzar von Platen built Göta Canal, he created Motala Verkstad, one of the country’s oldest engineering companies, on a foundation of canal-associated industries and designed Motala’s famous fan-shaped town plan. However, our history is both much older and more recent than that.
World class Stone Age artefacts show that settlements were present in the area at least 8,000 years ago. During the early 20th century, Motala was also the hub of Sweden’s first broadcast transmissions and the station here also played an important role during the Second World War.