Malmö is the largest city in the Swedish county. It is the third-largest city in Sweden, after Stockholm and Gothenburg, and the sixth-largest city in the Nordic region, with a municipal population of 365 644 in 2024. The Malmö Metropolitan Region is home to over 700,000 people, and the Öresund Region, which includes Malmö and Copenhagen, is home to four million people.

Malmö was one of the earliest-industrialized and most-industrialized cities in Scandinavia, and it struggled to adapt to post-industrialism. It has undergone a major transformation since the 2000 completion of the Öresund Bridge, producing new architectural developments, supporting new biotech and IT companies, and attracting students through Malmö University and other higher education facilities. Over time, Malmö's demographics have changed and by the turn of the 2020s almost half the municipal population had a foreign background. The city contains many historic buildings and parks, and is also a commercial center for the western part of Skåne County. It is also home to Malmö FF, the Swedish football club with the most national championships and the only Nordic club to have reached the final of the European Cup.