The 1st edition was issued in Swedish, English, and French, during the years 1898-1904, in view of the Paris exposition of 1900 and the St. Louis exposition of 1904, under the direction of the Swedish central bureau of statistics, Gustav Sundbärg, editor. By a royal command of October 6, 1912, A.J.J. Guinchard, the director of the Municipal bureau of statistics of Stockholm, was commissioned as editor-in-chief of a new edition, under the direction of the minister of finance, to be issued in Swedish, English and German. The German edition was ready for distribution in May 1914 for the Baltic exhibition at Malmö, and the English edition was given precedence of the Swedish in view of the Panama-Pacific international exposition in San Francisco. cf. Pref Linguistic expert for the main part of the work: Sydney Charleston, M.A. cf. p. xxiv "Sweden in foreign literature": vol. II, p. [711]-727 I. Land and people.--II. Industries