The peculiar story about the Gävle Goat started in 1966, when the idea came up to design a giant version of the traditional Swedish Christmas straw goat: the objective was to attract customers to the shops and restaurants in the southern part of the city. On the first Sunday of Advent 1966, the huge goat was placed at Castle Square in Gävle: since then, the Gävle Goat has been a Christmas symbol placed in the same spot every year. The Gävle Goat became world famous and made it to the ‘Guinness Book of Records’ for the first time in 1985. Each year, hundreds of thousands of fans from all around the world follow him via webcam and social media (Twitter and Instagram). In 2022, for the first time in 56 years, the world’s largest straw goat gets a temporary new location in Gävle: during the construction of the new cultural center ‘Agnes Kulturhus’, the Gävle Goat will be placed on the Town Hall Esplanade, Rådhusesplanaden, in central Gävle. The inauguration of the Gävle Goat was thus moved from Slottstorget to Stortorget. Read more on Visitgavle.se